


The Ends Justify The Means

by reillyblack



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Bisexual Derek Hale, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Enemies to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Nerd Stiles, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Pack Mom Stiles Stilinski, Pack Politics, Past Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, Werwolf culture, all the pack things, as per usual, sexuality is very much a spectrum in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22019713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reillyblack/pseuds/reillyblack
Summary: Stiles's new roommate is a werewolf.He knows nothing about werewolves. He's probably going to have to learn,  since everything he does sets the guy off.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Erica Reyes/Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin/Erica Reyes, Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura
Comments: 205
Kudos: 1349
Collections: Rainy Day Reads, Sterek Goodness, Teen wolf RC20021997





	1. September

Stiles's new roommate is a werewolf. 

This is possibly the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him. "Possibly" only because he and Scott found and nursed back to health a passel of baby possums their senior year, and the babies imprinted on him and he was a possum dad for several weeks. The joy of fatherhood was sweet, but short-lived. His dad made him release them into the wild because his room constantly smelled of urine and he eventually figured out why that was.

A wild ride, but Stiles is now more excited about this.

"Do you think he'll talk to me?" Stiles whisper-asks Scott as they pull up to the building he's only half sure is the correct dorm tower. They're in a car alone, but he heard werewolves have great hearing and maybe his new roommate is in the near vicinity. "Werewolves don't talk to humans. It's not just me and my nerd-cooties. Did you ever see a were talk to a human?" 

"You'll be living together, so I hope he talks to you." Scott is less enthused. He had to put off college for a year to save up. But Stiles had received a huge scholarship that paved his way to said dorm living. Stiles tried to ease this sore spot between them by frequently bringing up how close he was to Beacon Hills and how he would come back almost every weekend to hang with Scott. But when his dad bailed on move-in day to fill in for a sick officer, Stiles had no choice but to ask for Scott's help. It had further dented Scott's strained happiness for him.

"I've never really met one before," Stiles says. Scott just looks at him with exasperation because Stiles has definitely said this more than once. Then he gets out of the car with a barely audible sigh, and Stiles takes a moment to tone down his excitement before he follows him.

Stiles finds his RA and accepts his stack of paperwork and the brief lecture about dorm rules. Scott sort of mopes next to him as Stiles fills out his forms, turns them in, and gets the key to his new dorm room. He feels his heart start to beat too fast as they load the first set of boxes onto a dolly and wheel it into the dorm elevator, checking his paperwork for his floor level. 

A girl gets in the elevator with them just as the doors are closing -- long blond hair and a smoking body. Stiles avoids looking at her until the doors open and she steps out onto their floor. Her jeans are so tight Stiles wonders how she can walk in them, but he still appreciates the view. She seems to sense him looking because she smirks over her shoulder, her eyes flashing gold so quickly Stiles wonders if he imagined it.

Scott is too busy adjusting the dolly to notice their interaction, so Stiles punches him in the shoulder and gestures non-verbally after the hot girl.

"Ow!" Scott protests loudly, not getting Stiles's sign-language-only indications.

"Werewolf!" Stiles mouths.

"She's not your roommate," Scott whispers. "She's a _she_."

"Still," Stiles mouths. Maybe he's still too excited for things like logic and reason.

Stiles takes the dolly from Scott's hands because he looks even grumpier now. He wheels his things down the hall while Scott watches his precariously stacked items for signs they're tilting too far one way or the other. They make it to his door, which is... open.

Stiles peers through, his curiosity ahead of his nerves, and he's greeted by the sight of five werewolves already looking at him. The hot blonde is among them, popping bubblegum and grinning. Stiles finds himself frozen as all their eyes flash different colors, almost in unison.

Instead of running away, Stiles clears his throat. Then he clears it again.

"Um. Hi!" He waves awkwardly. Taking his hand off the dolly de-stabilizes it and his stuff almost topples over. Scott lunges for it, though, and between the two of them they're able to right the boxes before they hit the ground.

"Oh my god." Stiles hears a feminine voice whisper, followed by a popping sound. His face heats up and he flashes back to his many embarrassing experiences in high school. This is followed by the memory of his even more recent determination that he would no longer be a nerdy outcast in college. College is where nerds leveled up, or so he'd heard. Acing classes in college is socially respectable, right? Unfortunately, he couldn't do much about his lack of limb coordination. That had never impressed his potential social circles, and he didn't expect that to change in the thirteenth grade.

"Can I help you?" A tall, older werewolf woman is smiling at him kindly and grabbing one of his boxes. He's never been this close to a werewolf before and it throws him way off.

He mumbles something incoherent but vaguely positive before shutting his mouth and nodding vigorously. She lifts a box like it's nothing and Stiles envies her strength when he tries to do the same.

"Um." Stiles realizes he's holding a heavy box and has no idea where in the tiny, crowded room he can put it down. Both sides are relatively bare, and he's not sure which werewolf is his werewolf, so he's not sure who to ask. They're all watching him carefully, curiously. Three of them look like they're the right age and gender to be his roommate, but these things are often deceptive with werewolves.

"What side?" the guy farthest from Stiles asks him, and wow, those are some fucking eyebrows. And a serious jawline. And stubble that Stiles is immediately extremely jealous of because he can only grow a scraggly mustache-goatee combination that no one finds attractive. This guy's stubble -- and his everything, really -- is definitely something everyone would find attractive.

"I really don't care," Stiles answers honestly. Scott elbows him, but Stiles has no idea why. He almost drops the box he's holding. The blonde giggles. 

"Left, then," the guy replies after an awkward moment.

Grateful for the decision, Stiles dumps his box on the left bed, next to the semi-rude blond girl. Scott stacks his box next to him, followed by the older werewolf woman.

"I'm Talia Hale," the woman introduces herself after she deposits her box more gracefully than either of them. "I assume you're my son's new roommate?"

"Stiles. Uh. Stilinski. Stiles is my first name," Stiles introduces himself as awkwardly as possible, holding his hand out for a handshake. Talia's shake is firm and strong, just as he would expect from a were.

"Very nice to meet you." Stiles believes her, too; there's no trace of mocking in her smile, unlike the blonde sitting too close to him. "Derek?" she looks at the guy sitting at the far end of their tiny room, her voice as firm as her handshake.

"I'm Derek." The guy doesn't lift a hand in hello, or move anything but his mouth. Stiles is taken aback by the distinctly unfriendly look in his eyes. Some of his excitement evaporates under that cool hazel gaze.

"Introduce your pack," the same firm tone from his mother prompts him to wave a hand at the guy leaning against the window frame next to him.

"Boyd." Derek looks at the blonde on Stiles's bed. "Erica." Lastly, he points lazily to the werewolf sitting cross-legged on the bed opposite them. "Isaac."

Pack. Derek already has a pack. That can only mean they all came to the same college _together._ Jesus, Stiles couldn't even manage to go to college with Scott, his best friend, and Derek had not just one but _three_ built-in friends to start the year off with. Stiles's jealousy mounts.

"Nice to meet you all," he manages, fussing with his hoodie strings as they silently watch him. Something about werewolf packs acting in unison had always unnerved him, made him feel like... prey.

"Is it just the two of you?" Talia asks him, something pitying creeping into her smile. Stiles takes a moment to absorb her quiet good looks, similar and yet dissimilar from her son, before he answers.

"Yeah. This is Scott, my best bud, he's helping me move in. My dad was supposed to be here, but he got called in to work. He was really bummed about it, he said he was really looking forward to moving the mountain of boxes out of my car." Stiles's sarcasm doesn't come across when he's nervous, and this shows on five werewolf faces and one slightly exasperated human one. "No, he was actually bummed because of the whole, you know, huge step into adulthood thing. He might have cried, honestly, so it's probably better that it's just Scott and I, now that I think about it."

Scott elbows him again. It's more of a gentle nudge than before. This time Stiles knows why, and he shuts his mouth.

"Derek. Why don't you and your pack help him? It'll go quickly if you all help out," Talia suggests in a way that's not a suggestion.

Derek looks around at the three weres, who swivel their heads in unison to look to him for a response. That's when Stiles figures it out.

Derek is an _alpha._

_Fuck._

They move all at once, the three weres following behind Derek as he walks with Stiles down the hall to the elevator. He's completely silent without his mother commanding him to talk to Stiles, and Stiles isn't good at silence.

"What, um. How long have you all been a pack?" Stiles asks, looking around at the four weres and hoping at least one of them will talk to him. All throughout high school werewolves ignored him, but now he's determined to break that pattern. It's going to be too damn hard to live with Derek if he's ignoring him. "I mean, you guys really have the mind-reading thing down, so I would guess you've been together for several years at least."

It's the blonde who takes pity on him, popping her gum and smiling.

"Isaac joined a year ago. Boyd and I have known Derek since we were kids."

"That's... sweet," Stiles tries. "So you grew up together. And now you're all here! At college. Together. I wish I had a pack sometimes. I'm here all by myself, and I'm pretty nervous about it, if you couldn't tell."

"Hm." Erica cocks an eyebrow, her eyes darting to Derek and then back to Stiles. "I could tell."

Stiles's friendly questions die in his throat at that because he's not sure if she's playfully teasing him or meanly teasing him. Derek glances at him, his eyes flashing red, and Stiles winces without even thinking about it.

He'd always envied werewolves from afar. They were just _cool._ Their packs gave them tight-knit friend groups of hormone-defying attractive people. They had superior senses and strength, and they used it to their advantage. Both attributes set them at the top of the social hierarchy in high school. And Derek, an alpha, would be at the very top, which explained both his aloofness and his inhuman beauty.

The door to the elevators open and every werewolf grabs a dolly from the lobby in a flurry of coordinated movement. Before Stiles can really process what's happening, his entire car is unloaded and the werewolves are wheeling his stuff back into the building, single-file behind Derek.

"Dude." Scott makes a face as they watch the weres follow their alpha back into the building. "It's kind of... creepy," Scott whispers the last word only as the doors to the building close behind Boyd. "How they move like that? How they look at Derek for everything?"

"Shhhhh." Stiles swats at his shoulder. "Bad first impressions last a lifetime, Scott. We don't know what they can or can't hear."

"Creepy," Scott mouths at him before wheeling the last few items left in Stiles's car into the building.

Stiles sighs, his excitement a mere fizzle of nerves now.

When he gets back to his room, his side is crammed full with boxes and the werewolves are all waiting outside the room instead of inside it.

"We'll let you get unpacked while we eat lunch, dear. We don't want to flood the room with more boxes until you've had a chance to get comfortable. Can we bring you and your friend anything to eat? What do you like?" Talia asks, her mom-warmth soothing Stiles more than he can admit.

"That's... really sweet, thank you. I'll pretty much eat anything," Stiles offers. He has food preferences, but he's not about to list them in front of the silent mob of models behind Talia.

"Same. Thank you," Scott says politely.

Talia smiles at them both before leading the pack down the hallway. Stiles watches them go.

His nerves mostly disappear as Scott helps him unpack and they uncover what Stiles deemed essential for his tiny dorm room. Scott teases him about bringing his Asimov collection with him, and he's probably right that Stiles will not re-read all fifty books this year. But it's a comfort thing, damn it. Most of the non-essential items in Stiles's boxes are comfort items, like the scarf his mom knitted him so long ago that it no longer fits, or the lacrosse stick he used all four years of high school. He fits the stick under his bed after a pointed look from Scott, probably not to be retrieved until he packs the room up next summer. But he likes knowing it's there if he does find himself in a highly improbable game of lacrosse.

They're on the last of the boxes when the werewolves file back into the room with a fresh wave of boxes that are better packed and far better labeled than Stiles's boxes. Stiles watches their inhuman coordination as they quickly unpack and set things up. Derek seems to command the betas solely with his eyebrows, but Talia speaks in full, explicit sentences -- maybe just for Scott and Stiles's benefit. They eat the lunch Talia brought them and mumble bland conversation while they not-so covertly watch the werewolves work.

Talia kisses her son once on the cheek before she leaves, sweeping out of the room with Derek's pack in tow. Isaac is the only one who waves at them as he leaves, which Stiles eagerly returns. A little too eagerly, but still.

Derek already has his headphones in by the time Stiles turns to talk to him. Damn.

Stiles sighs, resigning himself to the expected sub-optimal dynamic between him and his new roommate. Scott pats him on the back, no longer looking quite so envious of his impending college experience.

When everything's done for the day, he eats dinner at the Burger King down the street before Stiles drops him off at the bus stop for the hour ride back to Beacon Hills.

"You need to set serious boundaries with that werewolf."

"How do you mean?" Stiles swallows a huge bite of his burger.

"You let him pick the side." Scott shakes his head. "He's an alpha, Stiles. You get that he's used to bossing people around, right? Don't be his _beta_. Tell him what you want before he asks you. Okay? Set the right tone from the get-go, or you're going to get flattened by him this year."

Scott isn't wrong.

Derek doesn't talk much, but what he does say is usually clipped and authoritative. Occasionally he flashes his red eyes at Stiles, which Stiles quickly learns means he's displeased the alpha somehow. He hates how much it bothers him when those red eyes light up, hates how he doesn't know or even necessarily like the werewolf much but he desperately, desperately wants to be liked by him.

The first week of classes passes in a blur of buying textbooks, studying confusing campus maps, returning textbooks, and organizing and re-organizing his school supplies. His first few weeks are mostly chaos, with no rhyme or reason to his schedule, but somehow Derek gets into an easily recognizable pattern of studying at least six hours a day. Stiles notes that he studies for three hours in the morning before class and three hours after he eats dinner with his pack. He has to notice because Derek likes silence when he's studying, which means Stiles can't click his pen endlessly or tap his feet in Morse code or listen to his music without headphones for what seems like the whole day. Otherwise he gets the Stare of Doom, an extra frightening occurrence given the crazy eyebrows and unpredictable red flashing of his roommate's eyes. 

It leaves Stiles too afraid of disturbing him to try to strike up a conversation or invite him out to do something. And when he's done studying, Derek heads to the the gym around eight every night and returns home to shower at ten. Then it's lights out promptly by ten thirty.

It's a tight schedule, and it seems to leave no room for talking to Stiles. Or so Stiles tells himself.

His classes are hard too, though, and he has to study to keep up with them. It's a good school -- full of werewolves -- and Stiles can't coast like he could in most of his classes in high school. But his efforts are rewarded, and he tops the class on his first pop-quiz in Philosophy 101. Diving into his schoolwork numbs the loneliness growing in him, and knowing he's off to a good start with his academics gives him a little pep in his step.

Stiles learns through furtive glances at Derek's homework and the graded quizzes he leaves on his desk that Derek's also no slouch in his classes. Given the textbooks stacked on his bedside table, he's pretty sure Derek is Pre-medicine or Engineering or one of those hard science paths. It explains the no-nonsense regimen of studying every day. But when he tries to ask about it, Derek responds in noncommittal grunts and one-word sentences that honestly leave him with more questions than answers.

He tries to avoid the dining hall because he hasn't made any friends yet and he hates eating alone. Also, it feels like Derek's pack is watching him when he does, and they're always somehow there at the same time as him. So he takes his food outside and eats on the quad, basking in the sunlight and cracking open his favorite Asimov, _Foundation_. 

He drives home for the first two weekends, just like he promised Scott and his dad, but the third weekend he's exhausted from his first test and he sleeps in instead of driving down to Beacon Hills. He lies in bed scrolling through his phone instead of dragging himself to the dining hall for breakfast. His friends' feeds are full of their new college experiences, and they look happy and excited, like how he felt at first. They all seem to have made friends already.

Derek walks in at exactly the wrong moment. Stiles quickly wipes at his face and curls over in his bed so he's facing away from the door, scrolling mindlessly through his Facebook feed as he tries to get a handle on the surge of loneliness that overtook him. 

The room is oddly silent, and Stiles kind of wants to peek back over his shoulder to see what Derek's doing, but he doesn't trust his face yet. He scrolls through his feed a bit more until he's sure his eyes are no longer red, then he sits up to get into his adult clothes for the day. He's startled by Derek, sitting on the edge of his bed mere feet away, doing nothing but staring at Stiles, apparently.

Stiles's eyebrows raise slowly and he feels a flush travel down his neck.

"You can sit with us," Derek says calmly, slowly.

"...What?"

"At the dining hall," Derek clarifies. Stiles's flush deepens as he realizes that the feeling of being watched while he ate hadn't been just a feeling after all. "Erica likes you."

 _That_ gives Stiles pause, and it must show on his face because Derek rolls his eyes.

"Not like that." Then, after a moment of consideration, "I think."

Stiles had been about to refuse -- he doesn't need Derek's pity, thanks. But Derek had thought about it after he said Erica didn't like him like that. He _thought,_ as though it was a genuine option he simply hadn't considered.

"... Okay."

"Okay." It would be a nice moment for Stiles to see Derek's first smile, but the guy just sits up and starts to change into his gym clothes with that same indifferent face. Stiles looks away, estimating his comforter's thread-count. Derek is totally at ease with his model body, but Stiles isn't yet totally at ease with it. And he probably never would be. "We usually eat at 11:30 to miss the noon crowds." 

"Okay," Stiles says again, a bit dazed. The first coherent sentences the guy says to him, and they're not what he expected at all. In the back of his head, though, he hears Scott's voice: _Don't be his beta._ He's pretty sure Derek just gave him permission the same way he would give his betas permission.

Derek leaves immediately for the gym, so Stiles wanders down to the dining hall a while later at 11:30 to find them all sitting together at an otherwise empty table. No one seems to be talking when Stiles hesitantly sets his tray down. Erica's in her phone, Isaac is frowning at his burger, Boyd looks zen, and Derek looks like a more constipated version of zen.

Erica looks up immediately when he sits down, and he's a bit dazzled by her smile.

"Oh, thank god. You're entertaining."

"I never know if you're being mean or playful," Stiles chokes out in a sudden burst of earnest word-vomit.

Erica's eyebrows shoot up, and Isaac looks at him differently. Boyd lifts a single eyebrow.

"She's a little of both," Isaac answers for her, snickering as Erica pushes at his shoulder.

"Okay. I think I'm cool with that." Stiles's hand is shaking when he lifts his fork, so he decides to just take a sip of his Pepsi instead.

"We've been placing bets." Isaac leans over the table. "You're already at the top of Boyd's philosophy class. Are you a future lawyer?"

Stiles gapes at the silent werewolf across the table from him.

"You're in my philosophy class?" 

Boyd nods, slowly, and it's the most intimidating nod Stiles has ever received. He's not sure how he could have missed the hulking, handsome werewolf, but on the other hand it is a giant class with over a hundred people in it.

"He makes a point not to stand out," Erica says, fondly. Stiles takes in the way she looks at Boyd and decides she's probably more sweet than salty. "But seriously, no one aces those intro classes like that unless they're majoring." 

"I'm a philosophy major," Stiles confirms. "Not sure about the lawyer route yet, but my dad says I can argue until my tongue falls off."

"What?" Erica blinks at him.

"It's -- it's an expression."

"Never heard of it." Isaac grins at him, his curls threading through his fingers as he leans one elbow on the table. "Is it a Stilinksi expression?"

Stiles thinks for a moment, genuinely uncertain. He's only ever heard his dad say it.

"Is it?" Stiles wonders aloud. Erica giggles, her eyes sparkling, and Stiles starts to relax under her teasing now that he's pretty sure it's more playful than mean.

"My major's graphic design," Erica offers, leaning over the table. Stiles refuses to look down, even though her shirt is low cut and he desperately wants to. "What else are you good at? I'm terrible at English and I could use a study buddy."

Derek's face twitches for the first time, but Stiles isn't sure what it means. His betas don't seem to notice, so Stiles ignores it.

"I mean, I'm decent at English. What class are you in? Maybe I can help."

"The easy one with the easy teacher," Erica sighs, rubbing her forehead. "Maybe if I'd picked something harder I wouldn't be falling asleep and crashing the tests."

"I don't think that's the class I'm in..." It definitely isn't. He cashed in his AP credits to take a Spanish Lit class with a bunch of juniors. He's not bored, but the homework load is slowly killing him. "Still, study buddy sounds fun. I'm in."

"Can I come?" Isaac leans over the table again. It's less appealing than when Erica does it. "Can we study at your dorm room? Mine sucks."

"No," Derek interjects. He looks like he's developing a migraine. "No more noise."

"...I guess I tap my foot when I study," Stiles admits into the suddenly tense silence.

Isaac has to hide his grin behind his hand. Erica looks down at her food and hides her face with her hair. Her shoulders shake a little.

"We know," Boyd says, eventually.

Stiles shrinks down into his chair, which leads Derek to roll his eyes, all haughty and frustratingly hot.

"I don't tell them anything I don't tell you to your face," Derek says pointedly.

"He only complains a little." Erica whispers to Stiles. "Really, you should take that as a compliment. It's almost high praise."

That brightens Stiles up a little, and the lighthearted, friendly chatter that follows gives him the strength to withstand the sour look on Derek's face when they settle back into their dorm room after lunch, Erica plopping down on his bed while Isaac takes his desk and Boyd takes Derek's. 

"Americana can go die in a garbage fire, along with its cousin Country," Stiles tells Erica vehemently as she plucks one of his Asimov books from the shelf above his bed and flips through it with faux nonchalance.

"It's so cute how you get all up in arms about inconsequential and subjective opinions."

"It's not subjective. It's extremely objective. And of consequence. Poll of the group -- who here likes Americana or Country?"

Isaac raises his hand. Boyd raises his hand.

Stiles cannot be friends with these people.

Erica is giggling again, batting at him for no reason with _I, Robot._ Stiles tries to defend himself and wrestle the book from her hands at the same time, and that's when he sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. Erica immediately goes calm and docile, tilting her head slightly to one side and relinquishing her hold on the book they were fighting over.

Derek's glowering openly at them, his knees pulled up to his chin. He might as well have a tiny thundercloud above his head. Isaac scoots a little closer to him, his head turned to the side slightly, too.

Stiles doesn't get the silent werewolf-only-communication-thing happening, but he's starting to suspect he never will. So he changes the subject and tries to breeze past it.

"Isaac, you joined the pack just a year ago? How does that happen? And how does a pack form? I've never really..." talked to, like, _ever_ , "... gotten to know another werewolf before."

"Blood oaths," Boyd says ominously from his corner. Stiles smiles, then wavers because Boyd looks serious.

"It's just a personal choice, between beta and alpha," Isaac explains. Erica is still oddly quiet, looking down at the floor. "I left my other pack and joined this one because I liked Derek a lot more than my last alpha."

"What a _dick_." Boyd throws Derek's hackysak in the air and catches it on his knee. Stiles watches in fascination as he rolls it to his ankle and kicks it over to Isaac. Isaac catches it on his elbow with a showy flourish before he tosses it to Erica, who snaps out of her beta daze to catch it on her chest.

"I hate all of you right now. Do not throw that to me, I don't have the coordination for anything resembling that thing you are doing," Stiles gesticulates at Erica, who thankfully skips him and twirls the hackysack over to Derek. Derek catches it in his hand, watching Stiles far too closely as he sets it down on the bed next to him.

Boyd stands up then, followed by Isaac and then Erica. Erica runs a hand through Stiles hair in a nerve-tingling goodbye as they leave the room all at once, obviously reading that same silent werewolf communication that Stiles isn't privy to.

Derek sighs with relief when the door closes. Stiles doesn't get it.

"Don't you like your pack?" Stiles asks after a few minutes of quiet, once he's sure the pack is safely down in the lobby and can't hear their conversation. "Why'd you dismiss them like that? I thought we were having fun."

"Erica gets loud," Derek grumbles, thumbing through a werewolf magazine. Stiles has always wanted to read it -- see what werewolves write self-help articles about -- but he's never been bold enough to steal it off of Derek's shelf. "I can only take so much."

"Do you have other people in your pack? Are they not your favorites?" Stiles keeps trying not to judge his moody roommate, but it's a feat when he says shit like that.

"They're my entire pack." Derek glances at him, clearly verging on annoyance, too. "They know my limits. And I know theirs." Then Derek pauses and sets the magazine down on his chest, looking over at Stiles fully. "How did you know I dismissed them?"

"Because they left in that super-coordinated way that means you gave them an order."

Derek's eyebrows twist into an unfamiliar position. It resembles confusion, mixed with respect, possibly? But it only lasts a moment, and then he turns his attention back to his magazine. 

Stiles doesn't hate the silence between them anymore when they both settle in to read for the rest of the afternoon. And dinner later that day gives him ample opportunity to be loud with Erica.


	2. October

Study buddy meet-ups start happening on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They avoid Stiles's dorm room and the betas' irritable alpha, who actually seems more relaxed when Stiles gets back. This prompts Stiles to realize that alone time in the dorm is soothing to Derek, so he starts to park himself in the smoothie shop next to their building for a few hours of studying each week. Every time he gets back Derek looks more relaxed and less constipated. Maybe he needs the time for masturbating or something, Stiles has no idea, but he builds it into his study schedule.

At first the study sessions are just him and Erica and Isaac, but soon Boyd joins one to pick his brain about their philosophy class (which Stiles is still dominating) and then ends up coming regularly after that. Then Erica brings her new friend Kira along from her English class. Kira brings her friend Lydia to the next one, and before he knows it he's surrounded by a bunch of hot-as-fuck werewolves. And all of them, except for Lydia, seem to be very interested in his help with homework.

Lydia is a shining, glorious gem of intelligence and Stiles wants to worship at her feet after one study session with her. But she gives off hard-no vibes, so he wipes his drool away and decides to just pray to her from afar. She tells him that she's just there to be with Kira while she works through her homework and she doesn't need his help. Stiles totally believes her.

Erica continues to sit next to him and lean close when she talks to him, batting her beautiful eyelashes and flipping her long, shiny hair over her shoulder. The more he watches her with her pack mates -- all of which are guys -- the more he thinks she may actually be flirting with him.

They're waiting for their smoothies and taking a break from what Stiles fondly refers to as the Study Pack when Stiles gets the brilliant idea to use Erica's apparent favoritism for him for something extremely useful.

"I thought of a way you can help me."

"Perfect. You saved my ass on that last English test, and I hate being in debt."

"How do I get Derek to like me?" Stiles asks.

Erica tilts her head at him, her long lashes sweeping up and down.

"Oh, you sweet pup. He doesn't dislike you." Erica wrinkles her nose. "I would just be satisfied with that. It took years for him to like me."

"Are you saying I'm a lost cause?" Stiles accuses her. "And why are you calling me a 'pup'?"

"It's a werewolf term of endearment. Sort of. And of course not." Erica sighs, twirling one blond curl around her finger. Then she sighs again, louder and longer. "Alright. I'll help you."

"Great!" Stiles pulls her down onto one of the cushy, primary color chairs in the smoothie shop. "You should tell me what he actually likes. I'm pretty sure I know what he hates at this point -- noise, people, people making noise, things with color in them, thunderstorms, tiny dogs, tiny dog owners, our RA, and the moldy food that I may or may not have left on my desk for a week."

Erica sort of gapes at him when he's done with his list.

"Boy, you've got _sahn_."

"Hm?" Stiles leans closer, thinking he misheard her in the busy little shop.

" _Sahn_." Erica grins. "It's another werewolf term. It means you have good situational awareness. Usually humans' situational awareness is much worse than ours, but yours is pretty good."

"Thanks," Stiles lets a little sarcasm drip into his voice. He's pretty sure that was the verbal equivalent of a condescending pat on the head, but he'll take what he can get. "So? A little help?"

"What does Derek like?" Erica chews her lip, contemplating her own question.

"You've known him since he was a kid," Stiles presses. "You've got to give me something. I haven't seen him smile, not _once_. I'm starting to wonder if it even happens."

"It happens." Erica waves him off. "Mostly with Boyd, but I can squeeze one out of him sometimes. Okay, I don't have a list like yours because I don't take mental notes in the detail that you apparently do. But I can make some actionable suggestions."

"Great. Anything. I'll take anything at this point."

Erica contemplates him, her eyes sweeping over his face for a long moment.

"He hates to do laundry, so if you did some of his laundry for him it would cheer him up. Or even just folding. He despises folding."

"Okay..." Stiles doesn't hate laundry. He actually finds it soothing. "What else?"

"Well, definitely never leave moldy food out, Jesus, Stiles. You realize I can smell what you ate for lunch today, right? Our noses are the shit."

"I hate that. I hate that so much." Stiles has gotten used the constant state of self-consciousness that hanging with werewolves has instilled in him, so he does his best to move on from that highly disturbing fact Erica just shared. "But it explains why he didn't talk to me at all that week. What else?"

"He doesn't act like it, but he loves when people sit close to him. Not close enough to actually touch him, but close enough that he can catch their scent and feel the heat of their body."

"Bizarre, but I can do that, I think."

Erica smiles brightly and pets his knee.

"Show him your neck. It's a beta thing, but it'll probably work for a human too."

Stiles remembers, vaguely, the echo of something Scott said to him the first day of college. But that feels like ages ago now, and he has the very pressing problem of a roommate that merely tolerates him.

"Oh god." Erica starts to giggle before she catches herself. "You should definitely try to give him a massage. He gets sore muscles from the gym all the time. If he says yes, you're in. He lets us give him massages, he loves it. That should be after you've tried all the other stuff and he's warmed up a bit, though."

"Massages. Laundry. Sitting close. Showing my neck. No stinky food, or I assume anything else stinky." Stiles lists, his heart sinking a little. It's a short list. "If you think of other things, just text me. I'm determined to get on his good side before the end of the semester. I'm serious about this."

"Best of luck to you, Stiles Stilinski. If anyone could figure out the puzzle that is Derek, I would put money on you."

Stiles actually does smile at that because Erica's sincere this time, and she doesn't vibe like that often.

"Derek's just another class to ace," Stiles says with a confidence he doesn't fully feel.

Stiles puts her words of wisdom to the test as soon as he gets home. Derek's out at the gym, so Stiles takes both Derek's laundry basket and his own laundry basket down to the basement and reads Emmanuel Kant to the warm, thumping sound of the laundry machines.

When he gets back up to the room with the clean laundry, Derek still isn't back yet. So he settles down to watch Dr. Who and fold his clothes. He rarely folds his own clothes neatly, but he takes extra care this time. Derek's side of the room is freakishly neat, the bed always made and his desk organized even after he finishes studying. Stiles's side, on the other hand, is a little more like tornado country, which is why he hadn't noticed his moldy apple hiding behind his water bottle for nearly a week.

Once he's finished, Stiles ducks into the bathroom to take a shower. He will never be able to forget how sensitive werewolf noses are now. He resolves to never be sweaty or stinky around Derek again, and he can't help thinking back to any possible moments when he smelled... pungent.

He returns to his dorm to find Derek just standing in the middle of the room. He's staring down at the basket of laundry that Stiles left in its former place by his bed.

"What," Derek says, simply.

Stiles leans over to get a better sense of his expression before he answers. His face is more blank than usual, but Stiles is pretty sure it's not a bad blank.

"I noticed your pile was getting high, and I was doing laundry anyway."

Derek picks up a very neatly folded pair of boxers.

"You folded my underwear."

"Don't you fold them?" Stiles asks, tilting his head.

Derek's nostrils flare, and Stiles, for once, feels confident that he smells like absolute roses. He scrubbed every crevice twice. There's no way Derek can take issue with his smell. Although he may want to invest in milder soap, given how any intense smell is probably hell on his roommate.

"Do you fold them a different way? I just figured you were a folded-underwear kind of guy based on your overall tidiness. I didn't look in your drawers and check or anything. I thought that might be weird." 

Derek's face does something indescribable and Stiles starts to worry. 

"If I crossed a line, I won't do it again. It's just Erica mentioned you hate laundry --"

"You did this because... Erica told you I hate laundry."

"Yeah, but if it bothers you--"

"It's not that." Derek pauses, still holding his boxers loosely in one hand. "It's just -- now all my clothes smell like you."

Stiles looks at the boxers in Derek's hand and realizes with a jolt that he washed the clothes before he showered. Shit. They probably smell like the smoothie he had while he was studying, and maybe Erica's perfume. Maybe other things.

"Shit, I'm sorry--"

"Stop." Derek holds up a hand to physically halt the wordiness about to spill from Stiles's lips. "Don't apologize. You didn't cross a line. It's fine, I don't care." Then he seems to recoil from himself. He huffs an irritated breath. "That's not -- you don't have to be sorry, that's all. It doesn't bother me."

Stiles doesn't know what to make of the werewolf's reaction. But if he insists it's okay, Stiles isn't going to fight him. He was trying to do a nice thing with the best available information, after all.

"Alright, well... I'm doing my bed sheets in the morning, now that I know you can smell... everything. I'm happy to throw yours in with mine if you just set it next to your bed. It's not a big deal. If you put your laundry basket back in your closet, I won't touch it."

Derek's face does another inscrutable thing. Wishing briefly that he could read Derek's mind like his betas do, Stiles shrugs. He tried. And he's just nervous and frustrated enough to say something snarky and disturb the delicate truce between them, so he climbs into bed and pulls out his Asimov to distract himself until Derek goes to bed too.

Derek puts the folded laundry away quietly before he takes his own shower. But in the morning Stiles notices he strips his bed and sets the sheets in his laundry basket by his bed before he leaves for his first class. Grinning, Stiles tidies up his hurricane-style side of the room and throws his sheets in with Derek's in the laundry machine before he runs off to his first class.

Lunch that day is odd. Stiles didn't notice it before, but Derek never made eye contact with him unless he was flashing his red alpha-displeasure sign. But Derek looks him in the eye during lunch when he explains his Spanish Lit woes, and it throws Stiles completely off. Derek doesn't say anything -- he rarely does -- but now Stiles feels like he's actually listening to him. Being the object of Derek's full attention feels like a spotlight's been put over his head, one that's too hot and too close.

Erica looks happy. Stiles asks her outright why she's in such a good mood, but she avoids his question by stealing one of his meatballs.

Isaac gets a C on his Biology test, so at the next meeting of the Study Pack Stiles looks over his test and helps him figure out how to study for the next one.

"See, the terms used in this section are at the back of each chapter. So you need to make sure you study those next time. And this passage here is pulled word-for-word from the PowerPoint, so the PowerPoints are clearly essential. You don't need to study all this shit you've highlighted in the textbook, that's not how this test is built."

"How do you do this?" Isaac squints at him. "You're not even taking biology."

"You just have to be efficient when you study. Don't learn anything unnecessary, focus your energy on what you're getting tested on."

Lydia looks up from the calculus textbook she's using for practice problems, and Stiles thinks he detects the faint hint of approval in her expression before she refocuses on her work and goes back to ignoring everyone but Kira.

"Halloween party next weekend," Kira tells them, setting her pen down and flashing her red eyes. Erica's eyes go gold. Stiles has noticed that were eye flashes are associated with strong emotion -- disapproval, of course, but also excitement. And potentially other emotions Stiles has yet to figure out. "Anyone here going?"

Stiles takes in the faces around him, all eagerly nodding (except for Boyd).

"I didn't hear about it."

"It's werewolves only," Erica says slowly, chewing her lip. An uncomfortable silence follows where Stiles feels the heavy weight of everything that's different between him and the group of weres around him. "But who gives a shit about that, honestly. You're practically pack. You should come with us."

From the lowest of lows, those words push him to the highest of highs. He flushes and looks around again to see similar encouraging looks on everyone's faces but Lydia's.

"You can be Little Red Riding Hood," Isaac suggests, clearly trying to be helpful. "It'll be ironic."

"Doesn't she get eaten by the wolf in the end, or something?" Stiles laughs, giddy with excitement now.

"Only in some versions," Kira clarifies.

"Sounds perfect, then." Lydia arches a brow at him, and Stiles gets the distinct impression that she would actually eat him if he bothered her enough. Like certain irritable roommates.

Trying to hide his eagerness, Stiles casually writes nonsense in his philosophy notes as he asks, "Can a human even join a pack? Is that a thing?"

Erica beams at him, and Stiles is certain that his attempt at casual was ridiculously transparent.

"It's up to the alpha." Boyd closes the textbook he was using to take notes. Great, even Boyd is paying attention. "It's a point of contention among werewolves even today. Some alphas allow it, others don't."

"Some alphas are dicks," Isaac mumbles, sharing a look with Boyd.

Stiles's next question gets stuck in his throat, but it seems like the Hale pack weres read it in his silence anyway. Their expressions go tense and nervous. Uncertain. It's enough of an answer that Stiles swallows the question down before it can result in a very real and verbal rejection.

_Would Derek let him join his pack?_

"Let's go costume shopping together this weekend," Erica suggests hurriedly.

"I can't, I'm visiting Scott in Beacon Hills," Stiles responds softly. He refocuses on his philosophy notes, trying to recover from the roller coaster of emotions and ground himself in the safe land of academia.

"Just bring him!" Erica looks way too upset by his refusal than he thinks is appropriate. It's kind of sweet, actually. "He can visit you once in a while, too."

It hadn't occurred to him before to bring Scott to campus for a day, or a weekend if he could find somewhere for him to sleep for the night. But now he actually has, dare he say it, _friends_ here. And it might be nice to bring his two friend groups together for a weekend.

"Alright," Stiles agrees, a smile creeping reluctantly onto his lips.

They make plans to visit a thrift shop that weekend, and Stiles texts Scott to confirm the change in plans. He's still grinning about it when he gets back to the dorm room that night, and he finds himself humming happily as he changes into his pajamas. 

A throat clearing behind him startles him while he's changing his shirt. Usually Derek totally ignores him when he's changing clothes, but now he feels eyes on his back.

"Oh." Stiles realizes he's humming and stops, immediately self-conscious under the werewolf's stare. "Sorry."

"Something good happen?"

Stiles turns around slowly. Derek is initiating conversation with him? Did the apocalypse come?

"Y-yeah. Your pack invited me to a Halloween party."

Derek's eyes flare red and Stiles doesn't expect the lightning-fast way he sits up.

"The one that's for werewolves only?"

"Yup." Stiles grins.

Derek's face settles into a scowl. It dampens Stiles's grin.

"You can't go."

Stiles is so stunned he forgets he's shirtless. He puts his hands on his hips, slowly.

"Yes, I can. I've been invited."

"No." Derek shakes his head, his mouth a firm, thin line. "You shouldn't go."

Stiles tries to moderate his sudden flare of humiliation and anger by taking a steadying breath.

"Look, I know I'm not one of you terrifyingly hot hotasses, but--"

"No, Stiles. I mean if you go, you're going to get hazed. By other werewolves." Derek says this so seriously that it squashes down Stiles's building anger and sarcasm-filled monologue. "I can't believe they invited you, knowing that."

Stiles had noticed over the course of his life, and even more so now that he was hanging out with werewolves regularly, that werewolves and humans were usually like water and oil -- rarely did he see the two together for non-essential activities, and when they were forced to intermingle they didn't seem to mix well. And he'd heard about werewolves generally disliking humans, but he'd never seen hard evidence of it. Humans mostly ignored (but secretly admired from afar) werewolves, too, so it seemed plausible that the separation of the two subspecies could be mutual rather than one-sided. 

"I didn't know," Stiles mumbles, feeling like an idiot. To his surprise, his eyes prickle at the sinking sensation of disappointment. "I don't want to cause trouble when your pack's trying to have fun. I guess... I guess I shouldn't, then."

Stiles sinks down onto his bed, fumbling with his phone and blinking away the stinging in his eyes. He texts Erica first, then opens his text chat with Scott to cancel his weekend plans to come to campus. He'll just spend Halloween the way he always does, hanging with Scott in Beacon Hills and eating discounted candy. It's fine. It's totally fine.

"Stiles."

Stiles looks up, confident he's blinked away any evidence of his sincere disappointment. Derek's contemplating him like he did when he invited Stiles to sit with his pack at the dining hall. Stiles gets the uncomfortable feeling that Derek can sense his intense emotions in a way that other humans can't. It's too much, leaves him feeling too vulnerable, so Stiles drops his eyes without thinking, clutching his phone tightly in his hands. 

"If I come, no one will harass you." Derek sighs, just a little sound. "Erica's been pestering me to come anyway."

"What?" Stiles can't quite believe what he's hearing. "... Seriously?"

Derek frowns at him, tapping his finger once on the neatly made bedspread. Derek's phone buzzes, and Derek picks it up off his desk, maybe just to avoid Stiles's searching and confused look. 

"And now she's bothering me to come again. Did you just text her?" Derek sighs, louder and more annoyed this time.

"But you hate noise. And people."

"It's true."

"You really don't mind coming so I can go?" 

"Don't talk about it," Derek groans, rolling over onto his back as he types on his phone. "There, it's done. She won't let me take it back now. But seriously, don't talk about it. I'd rather not think about it until I have to." 

"Does that mean you're coming with us for costume shopping this weekend?" Stiles is smiling again, he can't help it.

"Shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written entirely to Betty Who's album Betty. 
> 
> HAPPY NEW YEAR, ALL!! Hope your hangovers are easing away and you're still in your PJs.


	3. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to fluff up this fluff. And add a little side-helping of drama.
> 
> PS - the name of this chapter is November, but the last bit of October snuck into the beginning. Technicalities.

Stiles spends most of the week studying for his Ancient Philosophy midterm, so by Friday he's over-tired in a giddy way that is almost certain to annoy his roommate. Luckily, Derek's out with his pack doing some secret werewolf thing that Stiles wasn't invited to after dinner. In his rare solitary time in their dorm room, Stiles is alternating between playing loud video games and blasting his music. 

He considered using his alone time for other purposes, but his masturbatory practices have dried up in the past two months. For one thing, Derek's constantly in their room, and even when he's asleep Stiles doesn't dare chance waking him up by trying to jack quietly in the dark. So he's been sneaking his self-touching entirely into long showers. Even his solitary time in the dorm has been tainted by the fact that Derek can smell everything. _Everything_.

It's actually ruined a lot of nice things for Stiles -- such as showering like a regular person and doing laundry every other week instead of every week. But he thinks his hard work is paying off. Derek looks at him. Derek even talks to him, sometimes. Perhaps Stiles was so repulsive before that Derek couldn't even stand to angle his nose in his direction. It's a possibility that keeps Stiles up at night, and he may have seriously developed a cleaning complex as a result.

Anyway. Masturbation. He's not doing it. He's pretty sure he killed his totally natural and normal sexual urges with his paranoia of what Derek can later smell. You know, when he gets back at the unspecified time that he did not communicate to Stiles when he and his werewolves left Stiles alone in the dining hall.

Oh, yeah, and it's Halloween.

Tomorrow is the werewolf-only party. The humans did theirs the weekend before Halloween (Stiles did not know about that one either), so the weres picked the weekend after. Stiles has been making lists of Halloween costumes ever since the betas invited him, looking through his closet (and maybe Derek's, once) for possibilities. He has some good ideas for costumes for him and Scott.

Then his philosophy test fried his brain, so he stopped trying to think clever things and pulled up his zombie game for the night. And cranked Dave Matthews band, another item on the ever-growing list of things Derek hates.

He's sprawled on the ground between their beds, chip crumbs on his chest and a pillow wedged between his butt and the cold floor, button smashing zombies when the entire Hale pack spills into the dorm room all at once.

"Stiles!" He feels arms wrap around his shoulders as a long, blond curtain blocks his view of the TV. He hears the sound of his avatar getting eaten by zombies. "Happy Halloween!"

"Whoah!" Stiles protests the herculean hug that Erica's deceptively delicate-looking arms lock him into. He chokes a little before she lets go and sinks into his lap, snickering at his surprise and brushing the chip crumbs off his t-shirt.

"Whaaaa..." Stiles trails off because he has a very hot werewolf in his lap and if he talks he might disturb whatever magic inspired the situation.

Erica's eyes are blazing gold and they show no signs of fading. He feels another pair of hands tousle his hair and looks up to see a breathless Isaac, his eyes also steadily aglow.

The energy in the room is crackling, blistering. Stiles has never felt quite so much like a lamb among wolves as when Boyd levels him with a hungry, bright amber stare from his usual seat at Derek's desk. 

"What's kicking, guys?" Stiles manages, weakly. "Did we all get into some were drugs or what? Is this the day we actually do eat Stiles?"

"No, silly," Erica laughs again, and it's a breathless, free sound. "It's the full moon tonight! We're at our full strength. We wanted to invite you out with us."

"Ahhh..." Stiles catches sight of Derek then, and the blazing inferno below those dark eyebrows absolutely mesmerizes him. "Again, come out with you so you can... murder me?"

"To a werewolf bar," Isaac chimes in, grinning at him. "Werewolves can drink wolfsbane before twenty one."

"Why the fuck is everything better for werewolves?"

"Because we make all the rules," Boyd says darkly.

"We do outnumber human congresspeople two to one," Isaac points out.

"That's just... great," Stiles mutters. "My sad little human future looks dimmer and dimmer the longer I know you guys."

"Stop being so gloomy. It'll be practice for the Halloween party, Stiles," Erica tells him, wiggling her butt in a way that makes Stiles push her off his lap in panicked embarrassment. She giggles as she tumbles the inch to the floor. "Derek says it'll be safer for you if you pretend to be his date."

Stiles's eyebrows shoot up and his mouth falls open in sheer astonishment. He looks at Derek to confirm this very improbable lie.

And Derek's also looking at him like... he wouldn't mind taking a bite out of him with the rest of his pack.

"Come get one drink with us," Derek says. His voice is huskier than usual. It goes straight to Stiles's toes. "We should try to be credible."

Powerless against them, Stiles lets Isaac pull him up from the floor and steer him out the door with a steel arm around his shoulders.

They pile into Derek's Camaro, Erica squishing him between herself and Boyd so they all fit. Stiles is constantly touched, constantly petted, and he starts to feel a little claustrophobic about it all. Even Boyd is touching him, a hand on his arm or a pat on his back that's completely unnecessary and out of character. But the weres are all touching each other, too, physically wrestling or walking arm-in-arm after they park and get out. Or, in Erica's case, jumping on Derek's back and making him carry her into the horribly crowded were club.

But Derek keeps his distance until they get past the bouncer, a particularly frightening beta with bright blue eyes who checks their IDs. Stiles has never seen blue eyes on a were, but the other weres avoid looking directly at them and Stiles takes his cues from them. Once they're inside, the betas seem to explode with energy, bounding onto the packed dance floor and quickly disappearing in the bodies. But Derek grabs Stiles by the arm before he can attempt to follow them in.

Then, to Stiles's nearly heart-attack inducing shock, he threads their hands together.

Stiles has to swallow several times before he looks up from their hands and realizes that Derek is saying something to him under the heavy bass of the dreamy, anthemic music pounding the air. Stiles leans in to hear him better and he feels Derek's breath on his ear.

"Drink. Bar."

"Can I even drink wolfsbane?" Stiles shouts. The music in here must be destroying the weres' ears, but no one seems to mind.

"It won't kill you," Derek shouts back.

There's no open seats, so they lean against the far end of the bar while Derek flags the bartender. He orders for Stiles, which is a great because Stiles would have no idea what to order in this kind of place.

"I got you a human drink. Non-alcoholic." 

Stiles can hear Derek a little better over here in the stereo blindspot, but they still have to lean way too close to use semi-normal voices with each other. Not that Stiles minds one little bit when Derek puts his perfect lips right up against his ears.

"Dude." Stiles looks down at himself for the first time. "I'm in my sweatpants."

"It's fine," Derek tells him, taking his hand again like it's nothing. Stiles watches him put their intertwined hands on the bar, his brain breaking a little bit. "Does it bother you?"

"What?"

"This." Derek lifts their fingers. His hands are smoother than Stiles expected. Stiles doesn't know why he expected his hands to be covered in callouses, but there's only a few, which Stiles guesses by the locations are from weightlifting. "Does this bother you?"

"Uh. No," Stiles answers honestly. "Just weird."

Derek lifts one eyebrow, and his lips are curving into something that Stiles strongly suspects could turn into a smile one day.

"Then stop staring. It doesn't look natural."

He's nothing close to the wild energy of his betas right now, but he's looser than Stiles has ever seen him. The tension that seems to permanently flatten his mouth into a frown is gone, his lips softer and fuller than Stiles can remember them ever looking.

And now he's staring again.

"How did you know?" Stiles asks, then immediately regrets it. It's his word-vomit disease; it's becoming a worse and worse problem. He needs to buy a brain-to-mouth filter; they must sell those on Amazon by now.

"Know what?" Derek asks.

Their drinks are placed in front of them by the werewolf bartender. He looks between them for a half a second, his lip curling obviously at Derek before he turns sharply and leaves. Incredibly, Derek huffs a laugh as he's leaving.

A laugh. From Derek. Derek is _laughing._ Snarky disrespect from a strange werewolf, of all things, is what cracks him.

"What the fuck," Stiles splutters, again before he can think to filter himself.

"That were was jealous of me," Derek tells him, still half-smiling. It's blowing Stiles's mind. "So he bought it. Success."

"Jealous of _me_ , more like," Stiles mumbles. This time he has the good sense to actually mumble it, and Derek leans closer and gestures for him to repeat himself.

"How did you know I like guys?" Stiles rephrases his earlier question, panicking. He definitely just implied that he thinks Derek is hot, so he's not repeating that.

Derek sits back, his gaze combing over Stiles's face.

"I didn't."

Stiles lifts their intertwined hands in a wordless question.

"I figured you really wanted to go to this party, so you wouldn't mind. This is the best solution -- no one messes with an alpha's date, even other alphas. Unless they're looking to challenge the alpha for his pack."

"Oh." Stiles feels his face flush with embarrassment. So he didn't exactly need to out himself to his frustratingly attractive roommate. That's cool.

"Everyone's in a good mood tonight because of the moon, but that won't be the case tomorrow." Derek leans against the bar, sipping his drink. No one should look that fucking cool. It shouldn't be allowed, definitely not for a teenager with inexplicably full, glorious beard growth. "You'll get some dirty looks, at least. You fine with that?"

"I'm fine." Stiles is more than fine. Stiles is so much more than fine that it's actually scaring him a little. "I just did. Didn't kill me."

"That look was directed at me, Stiles."

Derek squeezes his hand, a casual, gentle touch. In the throbbing darkness around them the myriad werewolf eyes are like black lights, bouncing around and fading briefly with each blink. Derek's particular shade of red is the prettiest color out of all of them, Stiles thinks idly.

"Do you?" Stiles asks. It's all a dream, anyway, so why not? No way is he actually in a werewolf bar surrounded by hyped-up dancing werewolves, his beautiful roommate holding his hand and pretending to be his.. his... he can't even think it.

"Do I what?" Derek sips his drink again, then nudges Stiles's untouched drink on the bar. Stiles tastes it only to discover it's a boring coke. 

"I don't even know what you like. You don't talk about girls. Or boys. Or anything else."

"I hear you've been asking my betas about that," Derek levels him with a look that feels like a gentle reprimand.

"Not about--" Stiles chokes on his own tongue. "God, not about your dating preferences, I swear! I was just trying to figure out how not to annoy you. _God_."

"I know." Derek smiles again. It's a tiny, ironic twitch, but it's there and Stiles savors it. "It was... it's nice, that you're trying."

"You've been doing my dishes, haven't you?" Stiles blurts out. Every time he sets a dish down lately, it magically disappears when he turns his back on it or leaves the room. It's been driving him crazy that he never seems to catch Derek in the act.

"You've been doing my laundry," Derek counters.

"I don't hate laundry."

"I don't hate having clean dishes in our room. And you forget the dirty dishes are there. I don't."

"Okay." Stiles puts his hands up in surrender. But he immediately regrets it because it means he pulls his hand from Derek's. "So we're even, that's what you're saying."

Derek arches his eyebrow.

"I didn't say that, actually."

They attempt to talk more, but it's hard to hear and harder to yell over the music. Stiles can tell when Derek gets tired of all the noise and the people. He drains his coke and points at the door.

The cool air is bracing as they leave the club, the thumping bass echoing through the ground and syncopating their footsteps while they walk back to the Camaro.

"If the betas are naughty, do they get left at the club?" Stiles wonders sardonically as Derek slides into the passenger's side and throws Stiles the keys. Stiles just wanted to get some fresh air, since he has not the energy nor the outfit to get out on the dance floor with those crazy betas. 

"They'll call me when they're ready to be picked up. I'm usually just their sober ride on the full moon."

"Well, not sober anymore, but you are definitely... more level-headed than them right now." Stiles jumps in the driver side, eagerly starting the car. It purrs under his hands, a different sound than his jeep. "What's that about? Don't you get all moonshined up?"

"Moonshine is a type of alcohol, Stiles. We get _thime_ on the full moon."

"Cool. Why aren't you _thiming_ , then?"

"You've been showering twice a day lately." Derek glances at him as they pull out of the parking lot. Stiles notes that he totally ignored Stiles's question and resolves to ask his betas about it later. It's a strategy he employs frequently now.

"I've upped my hygiene levels all around, in case you haven't noticed."

"I noticed. I like the laundry, you let it get stale before. And the cleaning." Derek glances at him again as Stiles turns on to a side street. "But your body never smelled bad."

"I smell like a teenage boy," Stiles grumbles. "A _human_ teenage boy. Don't patronize me."

"I'm telling you that you never smelled bad to me." Derek's tone is the same as when he orders his betas to quit roughhousing. It reminds Stiles of Talia's tone when she "asked" him to help Stiles carry his shit into their room. "If that's why you're doing it, stop. It's making me uncomfortable that you're trying so hard. You should feel comfortable in your living space, too."

Stiles rolls his window down, the cool breeze soothing his hot skin. He hangs his arm out the window for the rest of the ride back to their room.

Derek doesn't sleep, his desk light still on by the time Stiles drifts off. Stiles wakes up briefly when he hears Derek leave in the middle of night, a blur of red eyes in the dark that seem to pause on him before disappearing. 

The next day Scott comes first thing in the morning, and Stiles shows him around all his new campus haunts until they meet the betas for thrift shopping. Stiles already developed and alphabetized a list of costume ideas and the pieces he's still missing for them, but he throws most of those out the window when they get to the shop. It's retro-themed, but in a jazy, funky way rather than a musty, moldy way and Stiles has to give Erica kudos for picking it.

Erica stumbles into the pleather section almost immediately, emerging with a handful of reasonably priced black pleather jackets. Boyd looks insanely good in the one that's his size.

"The Matrix! You guys should do a Matrix theme! You totally have a Morpheus vibe in that thing." Stiles gestures wildly, overexciting himself with his own brilliance.

"I call Trinity." Erica hoists a pair of pleather pants to punctuate her point. 

"Well, I don't want to be the traitor," Isaac grumbles. "Boyd, switch me for Morpheus."

"No way." Boyd looks pleased, which gives Stiles warm, fuzzy feelings. He's almost as hard to please as Derek. Almost. 

"Why don't you be Neo?" Stiles suggest. 

The werewolves look up in unison and Stiles realizes he's said something terribly wrong. 

"Or not?" 

"What would Derek be if I took Neo?"

"Yeah, he has an actual leather jacket that he loves." Erica gives Stiles a disapproving look that absolutely puts him in his place. "We can't do a pack costume without Derek."

"Not cool," Isaac tells him, just as stern.

"Derek's supposed to be my date. He can do a costume with me," Stiles tries.

"We're not doing a costume together?" Scott looks up from the clothing rack he was rummaging through, his expression contorted as though Stiles had kicked him. Hard. "But we always do a couple costume."

How To Piss Everyone Off in Five Seconds: A Guide by Stiles Stilinksi.

"Jesus Christ," Stiles mutters to himself. "Alright, Isaac why don't you be the driver guy? I don't remember his name. Bulldozer? Or you can be Agent Smith, he was badass, even if he was a villain. Scott, I totally have duo costume ideas for us. Don't give me that face."

After a thorough run-down of the thriftshop, Stiles finds the perfect Dr. Horrible goggles and Captain Hammer gloves. He texts Derek to ask if he can borrow his chem lab coat and gloves before he buys the goggles to complete the ensemble. Then they drive to a t-shirt screen printing place at the mall and make a Captain Hammer shirt for Scott.

The betas splurge on all the pleather things, so Stiles informs Derek via text that he's going as Neo and that he really shouldn't have a faked a stomachache to get out of costume shopping with them if he wanted a say in his costume.

 **Eyebrows** : _I'm not wearing a costume._

 **Me:** _Don't be THAT guy. Your betas almost had a collective heart attack when I suggested they do a pack costume without you._

Derek doesn't reply to that one right away, so Stiles texts him again.

 **Me:** _Do you have sunglasses?  
_

**Eyebrows** : _yes  
_

**Me:** _Cool. You're going as Neo._

Satisfied that he's won his first argument with Derek, Stiles brings Scott back to their dorm room to prep their costumes before they head over to the Halloween party.

Derek's eyebrows go sky high when he sees Scott in costume.

"You realize I can't take you both as my dates." Derek sounds like he's developing a spontaneous headache just from the thought. "No one's going to buy that I built a human harem overnight."

"Shit." Stiles considers his friend, who looks adorably confused. "I forgot about the whole... humans-getting-hazed thing. Um. We can fix this. Kira! Kira was complaining about not having a date. And she's an alpha."

It's Scott's turn to raise his eyebrows at him.

"And Kira is...?"

"She's great. She's perfect for you... in that she's your only option. Apparently werewolves don't like it when humans who aren't attached to a werewolf crash their sacred spaces."

"Attached, like in a pack?"

"Romantically attached is best, or so I hear."

"Stiles."

"She's cool! You'll like her. You'll have to."

Scott exchanges an exasperated look with Derek, and Stiles notes that they've found something to bond over, even though that thing is finding Stiles ridiculous. Then he dials Kira's number.

After some initial confusion, Kira agrees to escort Scott. Stiles takes a moment to enjoy how he's somehow fixed every problem that cropped up today. He's pretty proud of it.

The party's in a dark armory just down the street from the main campus. The building by itself is creepy as hell, but it's also decked out from top to bottom in spooky deco, including fog machines and sticky spiderwebs that immediately tangle in Stiles's hair. That same genre of dreamy music Stiles heard in the club the night before is blaring from the interior.

Derek grabs him by the hand as the betas charge into the party ahead of them. Kira, although somewhat hesitant, also takes Scott's hand before following the betas inside. Lydia pauses at the door, watching Kira and Scott walk hand-in-hand for a moment. She looks unexpectedly sad, and Stiles wonders if he did something wrong by pairing them up.

"Stiles, listen." Derek tugs his hand until he stops, then waits until Stiles gives him his full attention. "Don't say anything obvious about us not dating. Werewolves have very good hearing, even if the music is ungodly loud."

"Got it."

"Stay right next to me. Do not leave my side."

"Yup. Like superglue."

Derek frowns at him. Stiles grins back, excited, and that prompts an eyeroll.

Inside is pitch black, although Stiles can sort of make out goblins and skeleton and other creepy things along the walls. The only light comes from black lights on the floor that delineate the paths. Stiles quickly realizes that werewolves have much better night vision than humans, since Derek maneuvers through the space with confidence. Most of the weres on the dance floor are wearing glowing bracelets, necklaces, or headbands, and the glow catches their eyes in eerie, predatory flashes of light. Stiles finds himself hugging tight to Derek's side, afraid he'll step on someone's feet in the dark or that one of the weres watching him with a carnivorous gaze will actually try to rough him up.

Eventually, after bumping into him more than once, Derek just shoves Stiles under his arm and hugs him to his side. Stiles grumbles, but he secretly finds it quite comfortable under the alpha's warm, iron-hard half-hug.

Once they're on the dance floor, Stiles pulls Derek out into the throng until they find the betas. Erica's boogying between Boyd and Isaac, but she pulls Stiles into a foursome dancing thing when he gets close enough. Kira and Scott and Lydia are nowhere to be found, so Stiles decides to just enjoy the odd, thumping were music and the happy, black-lit smiles of his pack while they try to coerce their gloomy alpha into doing more than just swaying on the spot.

Boyd and Isaac seem to grow tired of what Stiles quickly dubs the Dance Pack, and they disappear one at a time into the throng with other attractive werewolves. Then it's just Erica and Stiles and Derek dancing together. Or rather, Stiles and Erica dancing, and Derek tolerating the music.

Erica disappears too, but only briefly. She reappears with red cups that she gives to both Derek and Stiles, splashing liquid all over Stiles's shoes.

She drains her own cup in one long, drawn-out swallow. Stiles, taking the challenge presented to him, does the same.

That's how Stiles gets his first taste of wolfsbane.

He's pretty sure wolfsbane isn't supposed to work on humans, but maybe this drink is spiked with something else that does because his throat burns and almost immediately the world goes tipsy. Derek looks unaffected from his single sip, moodier than ever in the vibrating darkness, but Erica looks electrified. She's accumulated a Mardi Gras number of glowing necklaces around her neck, and the combined glow casts her chest in a soft, gorgeous contrast. Stiles knows he shouldn't look at her chest quite so obviously, but everything is exciting and a little blurry. She probably won't notice when she's dancing like that, anyway.

She notices.

She dances closer to him, turning until her backside rubs up against his front, but just barely, only when she sways her hips just right. Then she casually threads their hands together and guides his hands to her hips, slowing her movements down until they're luxurious and dirty and she's close, so close. Stiles feels sort of frozen, no longer moving to the music, his heart a wild mess as soft curves press up against his aching, long-neglected dick.

He barely registers a flash of red in his periphery. He's leaning down to taste Erica's neck... when all that soft warmth turns into air.

Erica backs away from him swiftly, tilting her head and showing her neck. Stiles is still grasping at the empty space where she used to be, so the gesture is clearly not for his benefit. He looks around and notices that Derek's no longer next to them. Then Erica's gone, too, slipping off in the same direction that Derek used to be.

And Stiles is standing in the middle of the pitch black dance floor, totally alone.

It's a strange sensation. At first he doesn't panic, pushing his way through the glowing bodies in the same general direction where they both seemed to have left. But some werewolves don't get out of his way, turning around and leering at him, flashing their eyes and snarling. Red. Gold. Red again. Blue. One guy shoves him so hard he hits the ground. Stiles gets up, his butt and wrist aching, and tries a different direction.

His heart's in his throat by the time he makes it to the edge of the dance floor. He can't tell which bodies belong to his werewolves, and the flashing eyes all look the same in the dark. So he just follows the blacklight markings on the floor and gropes at the wall until he gets to a staircase that leads down to a red, glowing EXIT sign.

Thank fuck.

Outside, the air tastes like fall and fog and wolfsbane smoke. There's a smattering of werewolf packs gathered on the wide lawn, some of them smoking wolfsbane, others just laughing and joking around in the relative quiet. It's a little brighter outside because of the streetlights, but he still can't make out faces very well. He heads toward the front of the building, and that's when he sees Scott's floppy-haired silhouette that he's had memorized since he was a kid. But it's attached to... Kira, making out against the outer wall of the armory, only partially obscured by a bush.

Operation Merge Friend Groups is officially a success.

Stiles grins, feeling better after all the shoving he endured inside. After some consideration, he leaves them alone and continues looking for his werewolves. He'll take any Hale beta or alpha he can find at this point, he's not picky. None of the other packs on the lawn are currently paying attention to the stumbling, lone human, but he's sure that won't last forever.

There's two people arguing on the far sidewalk next to a streetlight, their voices raised enough that it draws Stiles's attention. They look like the approximate size and shape of Derek and Erica, so he starts to run across the lawn toward them.

"- not a toy, Erica. You can't just _use_ him for a grade."

"I'm not!"

Stiles slows to a stop when he distinguishes words from the raised voices. It's definitely his werewolves. 

"How do you know I'm not serious? Not like you bothered to ask! Not like you bother to spend time with us anymore. Stiles spends more time with us than you do."

"You're doing what you always do. You're _never_ serious." Stiles can see the flash of red even a hundred feet off. It's met with a defiant flash of gold. " _Back off_. Don't play your games with him."

"You just want him to yourself!"

"If anything happens, I'm holding you responsible. You wanted him, so _you_ watch him for the night."

Derek turns his back and storms off down the sidewalk in the direction of the main campus. Erica watches him leave, her fists clenching at her sides. Stiles sees her wipe her forearm across her face, but her back's turned so he can't see her face. 

He's not entirely sure what he just witnessed, but he's a hundred percent sure he wasn't supposed to witness it. 

Unfortunately, there's nowhere to hide when Erica turns to return to the armory. She stops when she recognizes him, then walks over. As she gets closer he can see her cheeks are glittering in the dim outline cast by the streetlight.

"Hey."

Stiles wants to reply, but he's still trying to figure out how exactly he should react to that information.

"So you heard." Erica swallows, her chin wobbling. "You hate me too?"

"No." Stiles can at least answer that. "Of course not."

"I'm not using you like he said." Erica's chin wobbles again. Stiles is pretty sure she's crying. "I promise."

"Okay. I believe you."

"Derek doesn't." Erica's voice cracks. "He's really pissed."

He barely blinks and he has a trembling werewolf crying against his neck. He pats her back and breathes in the sweet scent of her shampoo, wondering how the night devolved so quickly into this level of drama.

The world is still spinning from whatever was in that red cup, so Stiles eventually suggests that they just head home and call it a night. He texts Scott that he's walking back to his dorm, and he checks with Boyd and Isaac that they're good to get home together.

Erica pulls her killer heels off and walks barefoot next to him, still sniffling every few seconds. Stiles is quiet, his fingers hot and his ears burning. 

"Wolfsbane works on humans, doesn't it."

"Only certain humans. You feel funny?"

"Like I might fall over."

"I guess you're one of the special few." Erica threads her hand with his, quietly. It doesn't feel like one of her casual flirtations anymore. Her hand is tiny inside his, and it doesn't fit quite right. It's not the right shape. She doesn't have any callouses, not one. Stiles gently disentangles them.

"I don't think we should."

Erica stares at him, her lower lip starting to wobble again.

"No, it's just --" Stiles thinks for a moment. He was ready to start something with her when they were dancing, but now. Well. Now, he's just not. And he's sure he'll eventually overthink exactly why that changed within such a microscopic period of time, but that's for later. "I don't think you're using me. Maybe I'm wrong, but we have fun together when we're not studying, too. So. That's not why. I just think... it's better if we're friends. So I think we should stop... doing what we've been doing. And just be friends."

It's deadly quiet after that, not even a car passing by them to break the silence. Then Erica starts walking again. Stiles follows her back to her dorm, a few steps behind her for the rest of the way. She doesn't say goodnight to him before she disappears into the building. 

When he gets back to his own dorm room the lights are already off. He tiptoes into the room as quietly as he can, although he highly doubts that Derek is actually sleeping. More likely he's brooding in utter darkness for maximum dramatic effect. 

He climbs into his bed and sighs with relief as the spinning slows to a manageable pace. The burning in his ears has migrated to his stomach now, and he prays it won't morph into nausea during the course of the night.

He sleeps in the next day, waking up when the room is already bright with sunlight. Scott's halfway under his bed in his sleeping bag, and Stiles is grateful that he was too out of it to remember to lock the door. Derek's not in his bed, but Stiles didn't expect him to be. 

"Dude." Scott looks past his phone when Stiles peers over the edge of his bed. " _Kira_."

"Dude." Stiles's voice is scratchy and his stomach, despite his fervent prayers as he fell asleep, feels like shit. "Did you know some humans can get drunk off wolfsbane?"

Stiles takes an Advil and they play video games for a few hours and talk about Kira before Stiles drives Scott to the bus stop. Stiles doesn't tell Scott about the werewolf drama the night before, and he's not entirely sure why. Normally he'd be gushing to him about it, but this time it feels like something... private. He can't remember the last time he felt like something should be private even from Scott.

Derek's in a predictably shitty mood when he gets back from the gym, and Stiles doesn't want to disturb it. He hides out in the smoothie shop next door and works on homework until he runs out of homework to do. Then he pulls out his Asimov and texts Scott intermittently.

Dinner is a morbid affair. Derek is silent and obviously brooding. Erica doesn't show up. Isaac and Boyd are both nursing wolfsbane hangovers, so they're not chatty. And Stiles's stomach is still revolting from his single drink the night before, so he sips ginger ale and eats chicken soup.

At least Scott is happy. He texts him nonstop, usually about how great Kira is, and Stiles genuinely enjoys it. Apparently they were up almost all night just talking and getting to know each other. Stiles is totally Cupid. He's taking credit for them if they ever get married. 

Derek's mood persists through the next few days. Stiles hadn't realized how much he had unthawed until he freezes up again, going back to just talking to Stiles when Stiles talks to him. Which is rarely, because _hello_ permanent scowl.

Study Pack is similarly dismal. Erica doesn't show up, which Stiles expected because she's still not showing up for meals with them, but Lydia is also conspicuously absent both Tuesday and Thursday. This is somewhat balanced by Kira's blindingly good mood, but still -- they're down two members after just one (very short) party?

Also, Boyd and Isaac are giving him looks. He knows what the looks mean. 

"So I'm the bad guy?" he finally asks them. 

Boyd shrugs, but Isaac nods vigorously. 

"Did you even apologize to her?" 

"For what? Not liking her back?" 

"Yikes." Kira makes a face. "That's harsh, Stilinski."

"You started a fight in the pack! Derek isn't talking to Erica. Erica's not talking to Derek. And it's all about _you_." Isaac starts out angry and ends slightly confused. 

"The two of them fighting about me doesn't make them fighting my fault," Stiles points out. It's a solid argument, one he's thought about many times when he feels guilty about exactly what Isaac just described. 

"Its not your fault." Boyd surprises him with his slow words of support. Stiles is just about to thank him when he follows that up with, "But you can fix it, and you're choosing not to." 

"Oh my _god_. Is it up to me to fix everything, even other people's squabbles? They'll get over it. Give it a few more days."

"You're really not our pack, are you?" Isaac stands up suddenly, shoving his books into his bag and swinging it over his shoulder. Stiles feels mildly queasy as he watches him stalk away. 

Boyd arches a single, judgemental eyebrow at him. But he doesn't stalk off. He taps his pen against his notebook a few times and then says, "If you can fix it, you should fix it. It's causing problems that are bigger than the three of you."

"Did you give this same speech to Derek? Or Erica?" Stiles is genuinely upset now. "You know they left me alone in a den of hostile werewolves, after Derek made me promise I wouldn't leave his side!" 

" _There_ it is," Kira sings softly, pretending to be taking notes in her notebook. In the silence that follows, Kira looks up from her notes to see Boyd smiling and Stiles glaring at her.

Stiles packs up his own shit and leaves. He'll just study in his room with his stupid roommate who at least won't give him any of this shit because he's not talking to him.

By the weekend, though, everything is truly terrible. Derek's brooding has turned into moping. He doesn't act much different, but the air is more sour than charged, and Stiles can feel the shift in his mood. Erica hasn't come to a single pack activity that involved either of them.

Stiles lies awake in his bed Saturday morning and stares at the ceiling. Then he pulls out his phone.

 **To Curls:** _You were my best friend here. This sucks. Stop avoiding us._

He lets the phone sit on his stomach for a few minutes, hoping for a response. Then he sighs and rolls off the bed to set up his TV for some video games.

Derek is lying in bed, too, which he never does. He's always either studying or reading on Saturday morning. Or reluctantly off with his betas on one of their adventures.

Stiles leans against Derek's bed, picks up a second controller and offers it up to the werewolf. He tilts his head just slightly to the side. It's not obvious, because he needs to tilt his head to look up at Derek, but it's intentional.

"I need a second player for this."

"Play with Scott. I'm not in the mood."

"Come on."

Derek considers him, his eyebrows squeezed together. His eyes are a pretty hazel grey in the morning light. 

He slides off his bed and down onto the floor next to Stiles.

"No, dude, you gotta sit here." Stiles pats the space directly next to him. He's obvioiusly got to break out Erica's list of Derek Activities if he's going to dethaw the guy a second time. _Massages, laundry, sitting close, showing your neck, no stinky things._ "This shit is scary and I need your support."

Derek's eyebrow lifts skeptically. Stiles tilts his head, just a little bit, to show his neck. He's seen the betas do it when they want something from the alpha.

Derek goes very still. Then, he scoots over until they're side by side.

Stiles teaches him how to play, and Derek is annoyingly good at it. Something about werewolf reflexes, of course. The dickhead with all his superior shit.

They finish three games, the first two in failure and the last one in carefully coordinated and executed success. Derek is smiling a little when Stiles pumps his fist into the air and shouts gleefully.

"I haven't even cleared that level with Scott! He's going to be pissed we did it." 

"You just scale the wall at the end instead of trying to charge through the gauntlet of zombies."

"Well, yes, clearly we figured out that works better."

Derek sits back against the bed. His shoulder is gently resting against Stiles's. It's warm and comfortable, and Stiles...

"Hey, so. I guess I may have, like, fake cheated on you when we were supposed to be fake dating. In front of all your werewolf homies. After you specifically told me not to give the game away." Stiles feels the contentedness drain from the room in an instant. "And it's possibly causing problems for your pack." Stiles licks his lips and rubs a hand uncertainly through his unruly morning hair. "I told Erica, later, that we weren't going to do anything else. We're just friends. I mean, if she ever talks to me again, we'll just be friends."

"Hm," Derek grunts and glances over at Stiles. He looks much less relaxed than before, but his eyebrows aren't doing the scowling thing they've been doing all week. Also, their shoulders are still touching and Derek hasn't pulled away, so that's a good sign.

"Um, I just texted her. I told her to come back and hang out with us."

"She still might not. We're... she's upset with me too."

"I'm _guessing_ ," because Derek doesn't know that Stiles overheard them, "you're not too happy with her, either. Because of the whole... dirty dancing thing. In front of all those other werewolves."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Derek shakes his head. "I don't care what other werewolves think. That's not the issue." Derek pulls his knees up and rests his elbows on them. "Erica has always used her looks and her charm to get things. Most of the time it's fine, with strangers who don't expect anything else. But you're not just... some guy. You're..." Derek trails off, looking confused. "A friend, now. She should treat you like it."

Stiles finds himself, improbably, smiling at that.

"Can a human join your pack?"

Derek looks at him sharply, surprise written on his face.

"That's a different discussion."

"So... it's an option. For you. Boyd said that for some alphas it's not."

"Yes," Derek's voice is just as soft as before. "It's an option."

"Okay." Stiles feels hot under Derek's intense gaze. "Okay, sounds good."

Derek makes a noise and gets up. Stiles follows him, stretching and smiling as he changes into his day clothes.

Erica shows up at lunch. It makes Derek tense and quiet, but at least she's there. It takes another week before she and Derek seem to relax enough to talk to each other rather than just awkwardly avoiding replying to each other during the pack discussions. Isaac, who had been giving Stiles the stink-eye since Study Pack, chills out when Erica returns to the fold.

Boyd, who was chill with pretty much everyone except, very briefly, Stiles, seems particularly smug about it all working out. 

Midterms officially puts an end to the drama. Study Pack reinvigorates when Erica comes back, and they add another evening to the week while they all desperately try to survive the relentless testing. Lydia is still absent, but Stiles doesn't have the space in his brain to think about it. He only has space for Spanish Lit and Philosophy and Ancient Philosophy and Asian Philosophy. Stiles doesn't recall why he decided to take so many upper-level philosophy classes plus an honors class his first semester. He has papers on top of papers. He drinks too many energy drinks, and he taps his foot a lot while he's writing, which drives Derek nuts. But Derek is back to his previously unthawed state, which means he only snarls at Stiles until he stops and then they split a peanut butter cup pack.

After midterms is Thanksgiving break, which Stiles desperately needs because he hasn't been back home in a month. Scott came down two weekends in a row to visit both him and Kira, which means he hasn't had a meal with his dad in way too long.

He spends Thanksgiving cooking with his dad and listening to classic rock on blast because his dad appreciates loud music and Stiles appreciates him. The turkey gets basted to the tune of Purple Rain while they dance around the kitchen, belting the best bits. Scott comes over later with his mom and another mound of dishes for the table, and Stiles thoroughly enjoys the comforting presence of the two older, more mature humans after spending so much time with rambunctious and moody teen weres.

"So Stiles, what's the most surprising part about college so far?" Melissa McCall asks him as she passes him pecan pie, his favorite.

"Hm." Stiles thinks about all the things he can't tell her, and finally settles on the technically legal, "Well, I found out I can get drunk off of wolfsbane. That was a big surprise."

His dad goes oddly still for a moment, and Melissa's face flickers with surprise.

"What are you doing trying wolfsbane?" Noah practically yells at him. The volume and intensity of it surprises everyone, but most of all Stiles.

"Uh, dad, you and I both know it's not illegal if I'm over eighteen. Most humans don't even feel it."

"It doesn't matter how you get drunk, Stiles! You're still too young to be getting drunk."

Ah, that's the problem.

"Okay. All right. Don't give yourself a stroke over there. It was an accident, I didn't know." Stiles looks at Scott for support, but he also seems strange. Stiles doesn't get the joke. Here he was trying to share an interesting tidbit, and it's turned into a tense family dinner. "I promise I won't have anymore wolfsbane -- even though it's totally not illegal -- until I'm of the human age for drinking. Cool?"

His dad gets up from the table suddenly, disappearing into the kitchen. Stiles shares a look of confusion with Scott, but Melissa doesn't share his bewilderment. She stands up and follows Noah into the kitchen.

"Just... a parent thing, Stiles. You'll understand when you're older," she tells him as she leaves.

"O... okay."

How To Upset Everyone in Five Seconds: A Sequel by Stiles Stilinski.

His dad calms down after a few minutes in the kitchen with Melissa, and then they move on to their tradition of watching the parade all together on the couch in the living room. It's more tense than usual, but by the time they say goodbye to Melissa and Scott his dad is mostly back to normal.

He hugs Stiles for a long time before he leaves for school again, making him promise one more time that he won't get into anymore wolfsbane until he's twenty one. It clearly means a lot to him, so Stiles resolves to actually follow through on his promise.


	4. December

He gets back from Thanksgiving break and finds Talia Hale in his dorm room for a second time. 

"Stiles." Her smile is bright and beautiful and Stiles soaks it in for a moment. He hadn't noticed just how much she resembled her son before, and that guileless smile on a face that looks like his hits Stiles a little harder than he would like to admit. "My son has just been telling me all about you."

"Oh, god. About my foot tapping problem, right?" 

"That, but also other things." She chuckles. "It seems things are working out for the best between you two. How are you feeling about the situation?" 

Stiles looks between Derek and his mother, wondering if this is a trick question or if she's trying to confirm Derek's version of events. Derek gives him an ambivalent look that Stiles interprets to mean he should just humor her.

"About the same as Derek, I think. We've got a rhythm down now, so I don't think we bother each other too much."

"I'd say it's more than that. Derek told me you're thinking of joining his pack." Talia smooths down a wrinkle in her otherwise perfect pencil skirt, looking up at Stiles expectantly.

"I... am," Stiles confirms, looking again at Derek to check if he's supposed to be answering or dodging these questions. Derek's expression is almost carefully blank, though, and offers him zero help. They haven't talked much about Derek's family, but if Stiles had to guess from their last interaction, Talia is Derek's alpha. Or maybe she used to be before he became the alpha of his own pack. Stiles isn't entirely sure how pack boundaries work inside and outside of families and different generations.

"Lovely. We have quite a few humans in our pack -- I don't know if Derek has told you about them. He's not very chatty, my son, but it seems that doesn't bother you." Talia beams at him and Stiles gets the distinct impression that she likes him a lot more than she did last time they saw each other. She was polite last time, and genuine, but now she's warm in an enticing way. Eager. "Anyway, that's why I thought I would give this to you myself."

Talia stands up and hands him a piece of paper with a name and a phone number written in neat letters.

"This is my brother Peter's wife. She's human. She's been in our pack for nearly twenty years now, back when it was less acceptable for weres and humans to marry. After all we heard about you at Thanksgiving, she is dying to talk more with you. Make sure you give her a call before you make any decisions, one way or the other."

"Thank you," Stiles says, feeling a bit awed. Talia just opened a huge door into Derek's world.

"And of course you can call me with questions anytime. But if Derek's to be your alpha, you should really ask him first."

"I... see. Roger that."

Talia kisses him on the cheek, surprising him more than anything else so far, before she bends to kiss her son on the cheek too.

"My number's under Thessaly's number, if you were wondering. Make sure to put those in your phone, alright?" 

Stiles just nods dumbly as Talia leaves. Then he pivots, slowly, to take in Derek's real reaction.

He's... redder than Stiles has seen him before.

"So, is she your alpha, or...?"

"I'm my own alpha," Derek responds, a bit fierce. It's kind of cute, since Stiles knows what a pushover he actually is with his mom. "She was, before I started my own pack. So she still acts like it. And she's my mom, so..."

"Huh." Stiles sits down on his bed, fingering the piece of paper. "What's that like?" 

"Your mom as your alpha?" Derek looks thrilled at the idea. "It's exactly like how you would expect."

"No, I mean having a mom."

Derek looks up, alarmed, then seems to school his expression into something more neutral.

"Mine passed a long time ago, so it's kind of... nice to see how Talia treats you. It's kind of nice how she treats me, too." Stiles breezes past the awkward that's plain on Derek's face, keeping his voice light and casual.

"She means it, you know," Derek says, softer than before. "You can call her anytime. She's trying to... help me build my pack, and she's still trying to teach me how to be an alpha even though I'm an adult. But I won't care if you want to ask her questions instead of me."

"Is that how it works, then?" Stiles grins at him. "I have to come to you with all my shit first?"

"I'm supposed to protect you." Derek arches a brow. "And you're supposed to take care of me. And let me have the last say in group decisions. But you and the betas can veto me if you strongly disagree with my decision."

"Protect me." Stiles sits back on his bed and lets a little sarcasm bleed into his voice. "Like how you did at the party?"

Derek glowers at him and Stiles chuckles so Derek knows he's not actually still mad about it.

"You were a shit, too. You were _my_ date."

"You made it very clear I was your _fake_ date, but yes, point taken. I'm not going to argue you more about it."

"I won't." Derek clears his throat and adjusts the pencils on his desk. "I won't leave you again, no matter what happens. And it's not just physical protection I'm supposed to give you."

"Hm." Stiles grins, his toes warm and tingly for no particular reason. "How am I supposed to take care of you?" 

"You already do that too much." Derek rolls his eyes, looking red again. "Don't try to do anything else. But you need to get better at reading _sahn_ if you're going to be pack."

"I thought I had a natural talent. That's what Erica told me, anyway."

"You do." Derek looks at him strangely. "But talent only gets you so far. You'll start feeling left out if you miss things the others understand. Start practicing reading our body signals. They're more subtle than humans', so it will be difficult at first."

"Lovely. More homework," Stiles mumbles. But he's still grinning. Derek talked to his family about him. Derek is seriously considering making Stiles into his pack.

Stiles is seriously considering it, too.

"What's Thessaly like?"

"A bit crazy, like my uncle Peter." Derek shrugs. "But she can probably help you learn to read _sahn_. Her kids are humans, too, so you can meet them sometime if you want to. They won't understand you as much because they grew up in a pack, so it's all they've ever known."

Stiles never thought about what it might be like for human children growing up in a werewolf pack. Now he desperately wants to meet Derek's extended family and see how it all works, how the werewolves and the humans intermingle on such an intimate level.

"I don't feel left out very often," Stiles tells him, though he's not sure why he says it. "But I'll get better at it, if you think it's a good idea."

Derek smiles, just slightly. Stiles tilts his head to one side and Derek goes still, like he did last time Stiles tried it. His eyes flare red.

Stiles straightens.

"Was that a good flash or a bad one?"

"Jesus." Derek whispers, lying down on the bed so Stiles can't see his face at all. "It was... good. You read our _sahn._ You used _thiktan_ correctly. And it's not a flash, it's _Feh._ " _  
_

"So you liked it."

Derek breathes out, a harsh sound.

"Yeah, Stiles. I liked it." Derek looks at him, his cheeks flushed obviously. His mom must have left him riled, flushing like this. "You shouldn't say things like that out loud. You should just know if I liked it or not."

"That's not very human-friendly, Derek. Sometimes I'm going to need you to spell things out. At least until I get the hang of your werewolf mannerisms. Your... _sahn._ "

Derek considers that, rubbing at his beard growth.

"Alright. Fine. I'll give you a learning period. You can ask what you want."

"Perfect. How long will that last?" Then Stiles laughs at a new thought. "Can I ask about anything and you'll answer?"

"Don't push it, beta," Derek tells him, his voice gruff. Stiles likes the sound of it. It sounds fond rather than annoyed.

"Not your beta yet." Stiles smiles to himself.

Both of them are refreshed from the break, but that doesn't last long.

Stiles gets a C.

It's his first quiz back from break and it bodes poorly for... everything. All his long-term plans to be the youngest criminal justice lawyer Beacon Hills has ever seen. He can feel his confidence hit the ground as he crumples the quiz up and hides it in his bag before anyone else can see.

His face is burning when he gets back to his dorm. He just needs to study more, that's all. He can get his edge back. He was a little behind on the reading in Spanish Lit, because honestly can't understand what's so great about Camilo Jose Cela.

Derek seems to sense the minute he comes through the door (possibly storms) that he's in a mood. Usually Derek's the one in a mood -- someone took his machine at the gym, a hard science class has the audacity to assign an essay, the smoothie shop created a new menu and his favorite isn't there anymore -- and Stiles has to feel his way around it.

Stiles buries himself in his bed, humiliated. He has no excuses. He hated the reading, but he could have toughed it out. Instead he spent the break hanging out with Scott and researching weird werewolf sex myths and digging out his childhood comic book collection.

It's quiet again. Too quiet.

"Come here."

"What?" Stiles mumbles it into the bed.

"Come here. Now." Stiles tilts his head to the side to see Derek's eyes flaring red. He's sitting on the edge of his bed, his attention entirely focused on Stiles. The effect of Derek directing his entire attention to Stiles used to be overwhelming, probably because of the eyebrows, but now it feels like a relief. Someone notices he's suffering. He feels seen.

Stiles makes a noncommittal noise and turns over onto his side to look at the werewolf.

"Why?"

"Just come. Sit here."

Derek pulls the pillow from his bed and sets it down on the floor between his thighs. Stiles's eyebrows go way up as his imagination flies to places he's certain are not correct.

"You... uh... you want me to..."

"Sit."

Stiles drags himself off the bed, humiliation mostly forgotten, and sits on the pillow. He feels Derek's hands on his shoulders the next moment, warm and huge and firm. He closes his eyes and suppresses a sigh when they start to knead his muscles.

"What happened?"

"Got a bad grade." Stiles can't even say the grade. "It's going to tank my overall grade in this class. Which will tank my GPA. Which will tank my chances of getting into law school. So, I'm a disappointment to my dad."

"That... was a lot of conditional statements with small inherent probabilities."

"Do not talk science to me. I can't stand it."

"One bad grade doesn't make you a disappointment to your dad."

Stiles hangs his head.

"I bet Lydia never got a C."

"Who cares."

"I'm just... not used to this."

"I can see that."

Derek's hands drag across his muscles, heavy and soothing and wonderful. Stiles kind of wonders if he went to heaven instead of purgatory -- which is covered entirely in quizzes with C grades, probably.

"Tomorrow's a new day to try again, right?"

Stiles smiles, despite himself.

"Right."

Stiles sits there until his feet go numb from the cold floor, unwilling to move when Derek's touching him. He feels something wake up in him, something unnameable and dangerous.

He doesn't want Derek to stop touching him.

"You're tensing up again," Derek's voice is soft in the silent room. "Are you still thinking about it?"

"Yeah," Stiles breathes. "Yeah, I am."

It's a terrible realization, and Stiles would like to just bury it and forget it. But it means that his eyes are helplessly drawn to Derek's body when he changes clothes three times a day. It means palming himself quietly at night to the sound of Derek breathing just feet away from him, then feeling horribly guilty about it in the morning.

He tries to just act normal. He thinks maybe he's succeeding.

He repays the massage a week later, when Derek's already in the throws of his science finals. As he complains to Stiles frequently, he picked Chemistry as a major so that he wouldn't need to write any essays. But his teacher is a fan of the history of chemistry and assigned one anyway. 

So Derek's bent over his desk at eight on a Friday. Stiles is finished up with one of his three essays for finals already, and he can barely take the tension building in the tiny room when Derek slams his fist down on the desk and growls at his computer.

"Alright. Time to use your trick,"

"What. Trick," Derek seethes through gritted teeth, still glaring at his computer like that will make his paragraphs make sense.

"Come sit. In the morning I'll help you with your essay, but it's late, and I can see your back hurts from how you're all hunched over like that." 

Stiles throws a pillow down on the floor, like Derek had for him, and opens his legs. Derek's eyes flash red as he looks away from the computer and comprehends what Stiles is offering. He pauses, flexing his shoulders as though feeling tension that he hadn't noticed until Stiles pointed it out, and then moves to sit between Stiles's legs.

It's strange, the first moment Stiles actually lays hands on Derek's broad shoulders. He knows, intellectually, that Derek's strong. He goes to the gym almost every night. He looks it. But feeling the hard muscle, made even harder with the knots he's developed from his posture, is like pouring gasoline on his already flaming imagination.

He immediately wonders if he's sabotaged himself by feeling rather than just looking. He's probably going to get wet dreams about this, honestly. But then Derek sighs and relaxes against the bed and Stiles stops thinking about himself.

He doesn't give massages often. Or at all, really. He can't remember doing it... ever before. Maybe he might have done it for his dad, at some point. So he focuses on his technique, trying not to let his lack of experience destroy the point of his offer. He tries not to push too hard or too soft, striking up a middling pressure as he works the knots under his hand. He keeps his movements simple, just kneading and smoothing where the muscles refuse to move naturally under his fingers.

He's concentrating so intensely on his technique that he forgets to keep track of time. He doesn't know how long it is before Derek tilts his head back against the bed, looking up at him with eyes like the coals of an old fire -- faintly, but consistently, glowing with heat. He's never seen his eyes glow like that, except on the full moon. And even then, it was a brighter, more obvious light, not this low, steady smolder.

Stiles doesn't say anything. He doesn't think he's supposed to. Derek's just looking at him, studying him, and it's intensely personal like nothing they've done before. Stiles stops and swallows, dry and uncomfortable, from the heat of arousal that starts low in his belly. Derek's between his legs, his head between his thighs, his hair brushing against his groin. The warmth of his shoulders pressed to the inside of Stiles's knees is suddenly all Stiles can think about, all he can concentrate on past the faint, buzzing nerves that wake up under Derek's intense gaze.

A gentle touch on his ankle sends a cascade of shivers through his leg. Derek's chosen to break their strange, tense impasse. Stiles doesn't know what comes next, but he feels --

He jumps at the sound of their door opening, followed by the raucous laughter of their pack as they pour through the door. But then it stops, all at once, like they pressed pause on a remote. Isaac's frozen mid-laugh.

Derek doesn't jump. He calmly sits up and gets to his feet, picking the pillow up from the floor.

"Is it the full moon?" Stiles asks, his voice cracking and weird. He feels sweaty.

Erica and Isaac exchange a look for a long moment. Boyd just looks at Derek, who has his back to them, straightening something on his desk.

"Not for another week," Boyd says eventually. Erica and Isaac look down at their feet, both of them crossing their arms behind their back. Stiles studies the posture, wondering why they're doing it, wondering why Boyd isn't, making mental notes so he can ask Derek about their _sahn_ later.

"But Derek's all... _thiming,_ " Stiles says, looking between them in helpless confusion.

Erica snorts, then covers her mouth quickly as though horrified. Isaac shakes minutely, but doesn't make a sound.

"Why are you bursting in here like that?" Derek's voice is too even.

"We." Isaac swallows, then tries again. "We texted Stiles. He said to come."

"Oh." It feels like a long time ago now. It feels like he just looked into Derek's eyes for an eternity. "I guess I did. You said you wanted to play a game?"

"Truth or dare." Erica smirks at Stiles, breaking from her previous submissive posture. She'd mostly stopped flirting with him after their little episode. Now she treated him similarly to how she treated Isaac and Boyd, which more often than not was rough and outspoken.

"That sounds like kind of a bad idea," Stiles thinks out loud. His heart's still slowing down, his mind still racing with adrenaline, but memories of junior high surface through all that and remind him of where this path leads.

"Come on." Isaac seems to have mostly recovered too, though he darts a look at Derek nervously. "You want to be pack. We want to get to know you better. It's the perfect game."

"I haven't decided on joining the pack yet," Stiles clarifies. He still doesn't totally know what that entails, and what's different from being pack and just being friends with a pack.

"It might be fun." Derek surprises literally everyone, Boyd included, by saying. Stiles gapes at him. His eyes are still a little red, but just around the pupil now, not the entire iris.

"Yes!" Erica crows, jumping up in the air. Then she throws herself down onto Derek's bed, tugging Boyd down with her. Isaac takes Stiles's desk seat. Which leaves... Derek can either sit at his desk, or on Stiles's bed with him.

Derek surprises him yet again by leaving his desk to sit next to Stiles on his bed.

Okay. Sure. This is fine.

"Ground rules," Stiles tries, hoping to prevent the worst of his middle school nightmares. "How about: nothing potentially illegal or dangerous."

"No fun," Erica complains immediately. Boyd rolls his eyes, but Stiles doesn't know if it's at him or Erica's response.

"Agreed." Derek nods. "No truths that aren't our secrets to share. Pack rules."

"Pack rules," the betas mutter in agreement. 

"Alright. Good." Erica looks around the circle in anticipation, licking her ruby lips. "I'll start with Boyd."

Boyd ends up licking the floor, then chugging some of the werewolf drink Derek keeps in their minifridge to wash away the taste. Isaac has to serenade Derek in French, which it turns out he's fluent in. Erica picks a truth, which is how Stiles finds out that she actually did kiss Ben Bittinger on the playset in fifth grade. This seems to mean something to Boyd and Derek. Derek ends up doing a flawless hundred pushups in under two minutes, which his betas seem to appreciate in a weird, hungry way.

When it's Stiles's turn, the caller turn has passed to Isaac. He consider Stiles for a long moment. Too long.

"Truth," Stiles picks, his heart in his throat. Sure, if he picked dare he could get something benign like doing a British accent or brushing his teeth with Derek's toothbrush, but he could also get something like a hundred pushups in two minutes. 

"Why did you lie to us about not knowing any werewolves before you met us?"

The question throws Stiles off. He looks around the room, trying to absorb the _sahn._ Erica is leaning forward, interested, and Boyd's watching him carefully. Derek looks moderately concerned, but not confused. 

"I didn't," Stiles says honestly. "I mean, I've talked to a were at, like, the grocery store before. But I never really knew any werewolves."

"Isaac," Derek's voice has a warning in it that, to Stiles's surprise, the betas seem to ignore.

"We know, Stiles. You can get drunk off of wolfsbane. So we know. Just... tell us why you lied."

"What..." Stiles starts, becoming more and more confused by the second.

Several things happen all at once. The first is that Derek's eyes go all _feh_ again, bright and obviously angry, and the betas shrink back like they've been hit. There's also this sound that Stiles has never heard that vibrates in the air, harsh and grating, and it makes Isaac sink to the floor with his hands at his ears. 

"Out," Derek's voice is unrecognizable. It's the sound, Stiles realizes, but now it has words in it. "Everyone out."

He's never seen the betas move so fast. They're out of the room in half a second, the door slamming behind them and leaving him and Derek alone. And Stiles terribly confused.

Derek's eyes are glowing softly again, his expression a hardened, angry thing.

"Why...?"

"It's not you. It's them." Derek takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and stills. After a long moment, he opens his eyes again. They're normal. His voice is also normal again when he says, "They shouldn't have done that. They knew better."

"Knew better?" Stiles swallows, uneasiness mingling with confusion. "What's going on? Why did they ask me that?"

Derek sits straighter, no longer resting against Stiles's pillows but looking at him in that too-intense way he does when Stiles is in pain.

"You might be happier not knowing this. If I asked you to drop it, would you?"

Stiles stares at him.

"You know I can't just drop things, right? That's not in my nature."

Derek looks resigned now, his shoulders slumping.

"They don't know that your mom died when you were little. So they think you're lying about it."

Stiles takes those words, processes them, and comes up with nothing. He pulls his knees up onto the bed, shifting and turning so he can better demand that Derek explain what that means. Then the protective lag in his brain breaks and he gets it.

"No. No way." Stiles almost laughs it's so ridiculous. "My dad would have told me if my mom was a werewolf." 

Derek frowns, his mouth that thin line it becomes when he's stressed.

"Only children of werewolves and humans are affected by wolfsbane. The trait gets watered down by the third generation."

"That's--" Stiles's brain spins. "There must be other reasons."

"There might be. But if there are, they're rare enough that I don't know them." Derek shrugs, tight and short.

Stiles continues to just fish-mouth and gesture wordlessly. Finally, what comes out is --

"He wouldn't lie to me. My whole life. About this."

It hurts to say it out loud, just as much as it shocks him to realize Derek has no reason to say this unless it's true. And he would know. His pack has lots of humans, apparently. And half-humans.

Half-human.

Is that really what he is?

"Stiles."

"He wouldn't lie to me. Not like this. Not about her."

"Stiles."

He barely registers Derek's arms around him because his mind's still stuck in this loop where somehow his mother is someone he truly doesn't know and maybe his father too and on top of it all maybe he doesn't even know himself, either.

He realizes Derek is talking to him, right next to his ear. His breath tingles against his skin.

"I don't know for sure. But if your mother's pack didn't come looking for you, and you've never met them, I can guess. Your mom married a human. And they pushed her out because of it."

"So. Wait. So, you're saying." Stiles swallows down the sudden grief that clogs his throat. "You're saying I might have an entire family I've never met?"

"They... wouldn't see you like that. And you shouldn't see them like that, either." Derek holds him tighter. "If your dad didn't tell you, it might have been because of that."

"Because -- because he knew. He knew I wouldn't be able to just leave it alone." Stiles squeezes the tears out of his eyes. "He thought I'd go looking for them."

"Maybe. Maybe he didn't want you to get hurt."

Stiles is crying now, big, heaving sobs that wash through him suddenly. He pushes them down, swallows down his extreme reaction and tries to anchor himself in Derek's warmth, the nice, oaky smell of his shirt. It takes several shaking breaths, but he does it.

Derek doesn't let him go, a big hand smoothing over his back until his breathing is solid and even and his eyes are only stinging. Then Stiles sits back, overwhelmed by it all. More than overwhelmed.

"I need to call him." Derek's face pinches, and Stiles hesitates with his hand on his phone. He feels shaky inside, and Derek doesn't look shaky, so he asks, "Shouldn't I?"

"You're upset right now, and I don't blame you for that. But I think you should call him when that's settled and you've had some time to think about it. If you feel comfortable, you can talk to me."

Stiles drops his phone into his lap, his fingers numb.

"Okay." Stiles swallows. "Okay. Well. I guess, is there anything else? That I should know? About..."

"About being part werewolf?"

"Yeah." Stiles laughs, harsh and without humor. "Any other fun little surprises around the corner?"

"Most of the werewolf traits are recessive." Derek rubs a hand over his beard, watching Stiles too carefully. "They don't show up when we mate with humans. Wolfsbane sensitivity is one of the few."

"Okay, what's the others?"

"Your talent for reading _sahn._ That could be genetic, but it could also be from spending time around your mom when you were younger."

Stiles shakes his head, his heart squeezing.

"I barely remember her." Stiles shakes his head again. "I don't remember her eyes. She must have had eyes like you."

"If you don't live with pack, _feh_ can fade." It's gentle, calming, the way Derek says it. Reasonable for Stiles to have forgotten his mother's eyes. "Maybe she tried to raise you like a human. Treat you like a human."

"How can I not remember something so important about her?" Stiles wonders miserably. He hunches over as that misery rocks through him again, but Derek's there. He's right there again, rubbing his back and nosing under his ear. It feels strange and good, and Stiles leans into it, clutching at Derek for stability.

It takes him longer this time to calm down, but Derek doesn't seem to mind. It doesn't feel awkward, not when Derek's relaxed, his hands always moving, sliding down his back or touching his hair or rubbing his arms.

Before Stiles even knows what he's doing, he turns his head to the side and kisses him.

It's brief, because Derek pulls back just slightly. He doesn't move under Stiles's lips, so Stiles only kisses him for a moment, just a touch of his lips to the edge of Derek's lips. Then he's burying his face in Derek's shoulder, half in embarrassment and confusion. And Derek's still soothing him, still rubbing his back, like he's ready to pretend it didn't happen.

Shame burns alongside his sadness, but just for a moment.

They get smoothies in the dark night air, just before the shop closes. Derek gets his second favorite smoothie, since his first favorite smoothie died a sad menu death at the end of fall. It's quiet between them as they sit in the shop, everyone else bustling around happily as though their world didn't just change forever.

"Things with you and Erica are better?" Derek asks. Stiles hasn't spoken since they left the dorm, and Derek correctly reads that he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. Not right now, anyway.

"She doesn't flirt with me anymore. But she also doesn't talk to me as much." Stiles stirs his smoothie, feeling blank. "I think she's hiding something, but I don't want to ask what it is. Not yet."

"She's missed a few pack events." Derek nods. "I didn't want to ask her why yet, either. But she smells... like another werewolf, sometimes."

"Oh god," Stiles groans. "That sounds like trouble."

"Not necessarily." Derek shrugs. "Not if this other werewolf is interested in our pack."

"This is how you grow your pack -- through attempted romances, huh?" Stiles tries to smile, fails at it, and moodily stirs his smoothie some more.

Derek doesn't answer. Stiles looks up.

"You know who it is."

"It's not for me to say."

"Oh great." Stiles shakes his head. Then, realizing just how infrequently Derek leaves their dorm room, "Does that mean I know who it is?"

"I keep my betas' secrets, Stiles. Just like I'll keep yours."

Stiles lets it go, feeling too exhausted with the news of the night to try to extract new information from Derek. 

The next few days pass in a contemplative blur. He does a lot of research on werewolves. A lot of research on half-werewolves, which are really just humans with a few extra bits, like Derek said. And he struggles to re-engage with his homework, which is steadily piling up with final papers and final reviews and final everything.

He doesn't call his dad. He sits on it, letting it grow and morph and change into something a little less angry. It's something he needs to say in person, anyway, so he puts it off. His own research confirms that unless he has some extremely rare genetic disease, one of his parents is a werewolf and that's how he can feel the effects of wolfsbane.

And unless his dad's an even better liar than Stiles thinks is possible, that parent has to be his mother.

Stiles can tell that Derek gave the betas a very serious talking to because the next time he sees them Isaac crushes him in an apology hug, Erica gets all his regular lunch items for him in advance, and Boyd offers to take him for a ride on his motorcycle, which he doesn't let the other betas touch.

They all seem morose and apologetic, so Stiles forgives them and even talks a little about how surprised he was to learn about his werewolf side. He leaves out the existential devastation of realizing entire parts of his life were a lie.

"Half-weres can sometimes do _feh_ , you know," Erica tells him softly, her neck tilted slightly to the side as she looks at him. He's only ever seen her do that with Derek, so he takes note of this _sahn_ too.

"That's very rare." Derek frowns at her, disapproving. Like he doesn't want her planting unrealistic expectations in Stiles's head.

"I've seen it, though. In my grandpa's pack," Erica pushes back, but only mildly. "There's a half-were in his pack who can do _feh_. But it took years for it to show up."

"Cool, I guess." He looks around the group. "Let me know if my eyes start glowing, will you?"

"You can feel it," Isaac says. "It's like a burst of energy. It tingles."

"We better go." Boyd looks at Erica and Isaac meaningfully. Then there's a bustle of energy and dining trays and it's just him and Derek alone at the table. Derek doesn't look disturbed by his betas' sudden departure.

"They did that yesterday, too." Stiles picks at his mashed potatoes. "Do you know what that's about?"

Derek just shrugs, but his face is carefully blank and Stiles doesn't believe him. Something's up. The betas have been acting funny, and he doesn't think it's all just guilt. But he can't put his finger on it. 

"If it's _sahn_ that I don't understand, aren't you supposed to be explaining it to me?"

Derek eyes him, looking stiff.

"It's not _sahn._ It's not... really a werewolf thing." 

"Well, what is it then?" Stiles prods.

"If it's not a werewolf thing, I don't have to tell you," Derek counters, smirking.

"You're such a dick sometimes. And I'm willing to bet that the only reason you know what it is and I don't is because you're a werewolf. So, you're wrong and you should tell me."

Derek shoves him lightly, and Stiles savors the touch. He shoves him back just to be a shit.

"Text me over the break. Tell me how it goes with your dad."

"Oh, god. Two weeks." Stiles lets his head sink into his hands at the thought. He doesn't want to be around his dad right now. He's still angry, although after a lot of thought and research he understands better why his dad wouldn't have told him. That's assuming what Derek said is right, which Stiles is still afraid that it isn't. But he's also too afraid to ask and hear a different answer -- a worse answer, somehow.

"Call me. Or my mom. If you need anything, or if you just want to talk," Derek tells him, too seriously. Stiles's ears go hot.

"It'll be weird, not seeing you for two whole weeks. I've gotten so used to you snarling at me when I tap my pen."

"Ah, sweet silence." Derek smirks again. But Stiles raises an eyebrow, calling out his lie. "Alright, my mom's pack is a noisy wreck. You're better, though it pains me to admit that."

"Am I?" Stiles is more than pleased, but he fails at hiding it. Miserably. "Well, you can call me, too, if someone... takes your seat at the table or something and you need to vent about it."

"I'm not that petty." Derek scowls at his food. "Don't make me sound so petty, or I won't complain to you anymore."

"Oh no, wouldn't want that."

Finals week is a mess of emotions. Erica cries. Isaac cries, twice. Boyd snaps at everyone. Derek is just a tense ball of twitchy, broody silence. Stiles is so busy writing papers, proofreading the pack's papers, and managing his own scholastic emotional roller coasters that he forgets to think about his mom or his dad or accidentally kissing Derek when he was feeling super vulnerable.

Which he may or may not have been thinking about late at night. Every night. Up until that week.

Driving up to his house on Christmas Eve, he knows it's still not the time. Tonight is for appreciating all the good things about his dad, of which there are plenty. Not about exposing his biggest mistakes.

So he smiles and hugs him and decorates the tree with him, knowing they're just going to take it down in two weeks but enjoying it anyway. They make Christmas cookies and watch old Christmas movies. This year it's the 1960's _Grinch_ cartoon, but last year it was _Charlie Brown_ , and the year before that it was _It's a Wonderful Life_. He lets his dad pick the movie every year.

Maybe he's quieter than normal, and maybe his dad notices, but it's still nice. He still appreciates it. He's angry, but he still loves his dad and he doesn't want to wreck this precious time for them. 

For Christmas, his dad gets the jeep a total checkup and updated brakes. Stiles gives him a book on fishing and some new flies.

Everything is nice until it isn't.

Scott and Melissa come over for Christmas dinner, like they usually do. They're all sitting around the table again when Melissa asks him about college. Stiles gets deja vu, the worst kind.

"Oh my god." Stiles looks at Scott. "You knew. You both knew. You both knew and you kept it a secret, too."

No one seems to know what he's talking about, least of all Scott.

"Everyone here knew my mother was a werewolf," it comes out of Stiles's mouth, harsh and angry and exactly what he didn't want it to sound like. But it's been building just under the surface of his faux cheerfulness, and this realization pops the bubble.

Everyone's quiet like they never expected to get caught by him.

"You could have just told me at Thanksgiving, dad." Stiles looks away from his traitorous best friend, willing himself to be less angry and not succeeding. "I mean, I get it. Mom's pack probably sucks and you don't want me to try to contact them. But didn't you think I would figure it out after the whole wolfsbane thing? I'm not an idiot. And you get that I don't have a single human friend in college, right? Why didn't you just..." 

His dad's face is a wreckage of emotion, and it softens his fury.

"I don't know." His lip trembles. "I haven't told you about it for so long. I didn't know how to stop."

"Well, I had to find out from my friends. Which really sucked. Especially knowing now that Scott could have told me. Or you, Melissa. So many people in my life kept this huge thing from me, and for so long?" Stiles can't help it. He stalks from the table, leaving his full plate, and retreats to his room. He barely manages not to slam his door like a child. 

His hands are shaking again as he calls Derek. He picks up on the third ring. 

"Stiles."

Stiles has rarely talked to Derek on the phone. They're around each other practically all the time, so he never needed to. Derek's voice sounds strange, tinny and softer than in person. Stiles takes a grounding breath, his emotions thrumming through him.

"Hey. You." Stiles takes another breath. "Um, you said your sister wasn't coming back from college for break. Does that mean you have an extra room?"

"...Yes. Are you asking because you want to come stay with us?"

"Yeah, I think I do. Would that be okay with your mom's pack?"

"My mom is actually... she can hear us, and she's very excited. She's asking when you want to come."

"Soon as possible, really. I could come tonight."

Derek's quiet on the other end.

"Are you sure? It's Christmas. I know you're upset, but... that might hurt your dad."

"Yeah, it might," Stiles concedes, his hand still shaking on the phone. "But it turns out Scott and Melissa were in on this thing the whole time, too, and it's just. I need to be around people who haven't lied to me right now."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Come in the morning. Just sleep on it tonight, don't drive upset. We'll make the room up for you in the morning." 

Stiles sits down on his bed and touches his bedspread. His dad told him his mom picked it out for him, so he still hadn't changed it into adulthood, even though it looked like something for a kid's room. It's black with planets and stars. It had always comforted him to sleep with it.

"Okay. Thank you. And tell your mom thank you, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on this chapter for over a week... so I'm just going to sneak the last bit of December, which I'm still work-shopping, into the chapter for January.


	5. More of December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be January with a little bit of December, but then the little bit of December grew and grew and became a lot of December. So... here is an unplanned product of my chaotic writing "process".
> 
> This story has a pretty slow hit rate, yet, paradoxically, it's one of my most subscribed. Thank you to everyone who's still with me on chapter 5 <3\. I'm loving your speculation so far.

Scott tries to talk to him through the door before he leaves, but Stiles puts headphones on and refuses to hear his heartfelt, sad story about how he couldn't tell Stiles about his mom. Apparently Melissa made him swear.

Big deal. Stiles still would have told, if he had been Scott in his place. But he bites his tongue so that Scott will leave sooner.

He packs and sets out early in the morning because he anticipates the after-Christmas traffic is going to be the worst. But the highway is mostly clear, and the back roads Stiles takes to get to... god knows where, honestly. The forest? Derek lives in the middle of a fucking forest. Which is, surprise surprise, totally clear of cars. And people. And anything else.

He's just starting to worry that either his GPS is freaking out or that Derek's house will turn out to be a log cabin when he finds the Hale driveway and runs into a gate.

A fucking gate. And not a log-cabin-type wooden gate made from posts. A glorious design of metalwork, spanning over the course of the enormous driveway entrance.

He leans out his window and presses. A. fucking. Intercom.

"Hey, asshole. How come you didn't tell me you're rich?"

"Hi Stiles, this is Talia," comes the crackly voice, cheerfully.

"Oh." Stiles hits his head on the steering wheel. "Hello ma'am. Sorry."

"We're all so excited to have you! Come on in."

The gate swings open, all majestic and regal, and Stiles is seriously going to kill his roommate for keeping this a secret.

It's not a log cabin, closer to a mansion. Stiles is seething as he parks his shitty jeep next to some shiny red thing he doesn't even recognize and grabs his duffel bag from the back of the car.

Derek comes out the front door, smirking.

"Did you call my mother an asshole?"

"That is 100% your fault, you _asshole_. Why are you rooming with me when you can obviously afford your own single room?"

Derek's smirk breaks into a grin, and he ducks his head.

"Mom thought it would force me to talk to people who weren't my pack. And she controls the purse strings, not me."

"Your mom is a boss," Stiles mutters, impressed. "And I'm officially pissed at you for keeping this from me all semester long. You're buying me smoothies until I decide to forgive you."

Derek doesn't answer, but he takes Stiles's duffel from him. Like Stiles can't carry his own duffel, really.

(It's totally polite and sweet and Stiles kind of wants to hit him for it.)

Inside, he's assaulted by at least seven people at once. Three of them are children, and one of them is small enough to grab his leg and tug on it.

"Derek smells like you all the time," the littlest one says, his eyes flaring gold. He has the cutest, tiniest voice. "Are you Derek's mate?" 

"No, he's just my roommate." Derek tugs the littlest one off of Stiles's legs as everyone around him laughs and tries to introduce themselves at once. Derek looks flustered after that as he struggles to introduce Stiles to everyone who, inexplicably, wants to meet him.

Talia hangs back until Stiles has shaken hands with everyone. Thessaly, whom he had only texted with but hadn't yet talked to on the phone, gives him a big hug and promises they'll talk more later.

Talia kisses him on the cheek in greeting, and Stiles melts.

"Most of the pack is out for post-Christmas ice skating or something. These are all the introverts who hate crowds. And the kids. And my mom. No one would mistake her for an introvert," Derek tells him as he takes him upstairs to the giant second story. "This is sort of a pack house. Twenty of us live here. The other six live a few miles down the road, in their own house."

"This is... impressive." Stiles looks down the long hallway of doors. "Isn't this hard on your werewolf ears?"

"Not any worse than the dorms. A lot of the rooms are soundproofed, a special werewolf design. You get used to it, outside of the rooms. Everybody tunes everybody else out after a while."

"I bet you never got used to it," Stiles calls out his lie, but quietly. Derek raises an eyebrow while his mouth curls into a small smile.

Derek shows him down the hallway to an empty room. He closes the door behind them and sets Stiles's duffel on the floor before he throws himself down on the bed. He lets out a sigh that sounds like pure relief. This must be one of the soundproofed rooms.

"We have a couple guest rooms, so you don't have to sleep in Laura's room, which smells like kiwi and pears." Derek gags like that's a bad thing. "She's obsessed with human perfume lately."

"Cute." Stiles sits down on the bed with him. Suddenly they're back in a dorm room -- just a bed and a few belongings. That settles him, somewhat. "This is not where I pictured you living."

Derek just looks at him, leaning on his hand and settling on his side. Stiles can't meet his eyes because he looks like something he would dream up.

"I'm stuck babysitting most of the break. But there's books in my room, and two TVs downstairs. My mom's always busy with something she needs help with, if you get bored."

"You're a babysitter?"

"It's the alpha eyes." Derek shows his _feh_. Stiles shivers, even though he's seen it a million times now. "Very effective on children. But I keep strict hours -- nothing past three."

"Another surprise." Stiles scoots back on the bed, carefully dodging Derek's feet so he can lean against the wall. "Well, I'm a single child. So babysitting sounds like rocket science to me."

"You can distract me, if you feel like it." Derek shrugs, rolling back over onto his stomach. "They just say whatever's in their head, though. Don't be surprised if they ask you a lot of intrusive questions because we smell like each other."

"Is that a big deal or something?"

Derek smooths out the bedspread under his hands for a long moment.

"They're just babies. They think everything's simple."

It's not really an answer. But Stiles is used to Derek's non-answers.

"I'm really glad your pack has humans. It's nice not to be the only one."

Derek sits up, leaning against the wall by Stiles and stretching his legs out in front of him. The heat of him is almost palpable, and Stiles closes his eyes and just feels it. It's soothing, calming. Familiar, now.

"I don't get Scott. I kind of get my dad, but I don't get Scott not telling me."

Derek makes a sound that could mean he agrees with him. Then he just sits with him, enjoying the relative silence.

"Maybe you should babysit with me. You can't think about anything else when you've got a three-year-old and a ten-year-old sticking gum in each other's hair."

"Gross."

Derek sighs, sounding much older than he actually is.

"Peanut butter got most of it out."

Stiles laughs, rubbing his face.

"Yeah, okay. Let's do it."

Babysitting is exactly as chaotic as Derek described. The ten-year-old is too old for instructions, the three-year-old too young for it, and the seven-year-old is a perfect angel whom the other two torment ceaselessly.

In between bouts of children playing or fighting, they watch TV on the biggest couch Stiles has ever seen. The three-year-old plays with his toys in the space between the couch and the equally enormous TV. Some werewolf sport Stiles has never seen is on, so they watch with four other pack members who seem to be invested in opposing teams. Occasionally Derek helps the three-year-old with something he's too uncoordinated to do, or rescues the seven-year-old from the closet that the ten-year-old locked her in.

Stiles ends up laughing more than he thought was possible the day before. Derek is right, time goes fast around chaotic children. Before he knows it, he's helping Derek and a handful of other pack members prepare dinner in the sparkling magazine kitchen.

"This is more... coordinated than my previous cooking experiences." Stiles looks around at the different werewolves, all with their own micro task in preparing the roast for the night.

"Welcome to a fully functioning pack," Derek tells him. "Our pack needs some work, obviously."

"I think we do okay." Stiles elbows him. "What if the betas heard you say that? Just imagine Isaac's hurt puppy-dog eyes."

"They know they're a bunch of animals," Derek mutters, smiling slightly. "I don't have to say it."

Dinner is loud and even more chaotic than the sport-watching activities of the day. The werewolves all talk over each other, laughing and growling and using _feh_ to communicate their irritation when someone won't pass the butter fast enough. Stiles is fascinated by all the new _sahn_ in the room, and he finds himself quietly taking notes and watching the werewolves and the humans interact with each other. The humans imitate the werewolf _sahn_ , some almost perfectly. The only thing they're really missing is _feh,_ and they overcompensate by griping loudly when they're annoyed and cheering just as loudly when they're pleased.

Stiles finds himself yawning as he and Derek stumble up the stairs to their rooms. Stiles realizes he hasn't seen Derek's, so he pokes his head in and checks out Derek's book collection.

"Nice taste, dude," Stiles comments appreciatively as he combs through an old version of the Wheel of Time series. Outside of the colored books on the bookshelf, the rest of the room is like Derek's side of their dorm - monochromatic and overly clean. "I'm definitely going to be hiding out with some of these in the next few days." 

"Knock yourself out." Stiles hears the familiar sound of Derek stripping behind him. He keeps his eyes glued to what he's doing, a skill he's honed night after night when Derek goes to the gym. "I've gotta shower. Charlie spit all over my shoulder."

"Children are disgusting," Stiles heartily agrees. The bookshelf is all a blur of color and words as his imagination's overtaken by the memory of Derek's naked body. When Derek leaves the room to shower and it's safe to move again, Stiles steals three of his books and sneaks off to his room.

He texted his dad where he was going that morning, and he got a text message immediately in response. But he didn't check it. Sitting in his bed, he works up the nerve to open the message.

 **Dad:** _Let me know when you're ready to talk._

The next morning Stiles sleeps in and only gets out of bed when the rest of the pack has eaten breakfast. He picks at the leftovers in the fridge until Derek finds him.

"We're supposed to de-weed the winter garden and chop wood today."

"Why didn't you warn me you were planning on using me for my body before I came here?" Stiles groans, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

A peel of laughter comes from the room next door. Stiles doesn't think much of it until he sees Derek's expression, weary and dour.

"Can you... not say things like that."

"...Seriously?" Stiles laughs. "Do they think we're--"

"Don't finish that sentence. What did I just say?" Derek growls.

Stiles laughs again, then cleans up his dishes and follows Derek outside.

The physical labor does what the children achieved so well yesterday -- clears his mind, drives out thoughts before they even start. He follows Derek's lead, mentally checking out and enjoying the feeling of it.

At the end of the day, his arms are killing him, his back is sore, and he's ready to crash. They both shower, then Stiles wanders into Derek's room when he's done. He doesn't want to be alone, so he pokes around Derek's bookshelf again as an excuse. 

"So why does your pack think we're boning?" Stiles asks as he flips open a photography book of classic cars. He hears something drop behind him, and he turns to the sight of Derek cursing and hopping briefly on one foot. A lamp's rolling away on the ground. Stiles has to stifle a laugh. "That was dramatic and unnecessary. Nobody can hear us in here, right?"

"Still shouldn't say things like that," Derek grumbles.

"I don't get the whole smell thing. I can't smell shit, but I bet everyone smells like everyone else in a pack."

Derek takes his time answering, rubbing his foot.

"All my clothes smell like you. That has certain... connotations."

"Because I fold them?"

"Right."

"That's so benign. They're drawing conclusions from nothing."

Stiles absorbs Derek's embarrassed silence. A wicked idea plants itself in his head.

"Well, that just makes me want to mess with them." He pounds one fist on the wall rhythmically, maybe loud enough to break through the were-soundproofing. Then he makes his best approximation of sex sounds, followed up by a loud, "Oh, Derek! Oh, yeah, right there--"

Panic flashes through Derek's eyes, and then Stiles is on the floor with a heavy, masculine shape half on top of him. Stiles can't help the laughter that hysterically tumbles from his mouth as Derek sits up and just glares.

"You better hope no one heard that."

That only makes Stiles laugh harder, squirming so that as many parts of his body are touching Derek's. Since he's there anyway, Stiles is going to take advantage of it. It's intoxicating, having Derek on top of him like this, and he hates the moment when Derek pulls away and stands up.

"Come on. It can't be that bad." Stiles's laughter fades. "Are you embarrassed because they think you're boning _me_? Or because they're teasing you about boning in general?"

"Stiles," Derek sounds long-suffering as he looks at the ceiling. "My mother is obsessed with you, and she won't stop bothering me about..." Derek trails off as he takes in Stiles's poorly concealed ecstasy.

"Talia Hale. Is obsessed. With me." Stiles is beaming and he can't help it. "Do you even realize the compliment you just paid me? The alpha of this monstrous, obviously highly successful pack is obsessed with _me_?"

"It's obnoxious," Derek corrects him. "She has all these ideas about building the perfect pack. It's honestly annoying how much she asks about you."

"Please. _Please_ tell me more. How do I fit into this perfect pack you're building?"

Derek sighs and sits back down on the floor with him.

"You're smart and motivated. You help the betas with their homework, seemingly because you just enjoy it. And you do activities with them regularly, which I've never been good at." Derek hesitates before he adds, almost reluctantly, "And there's the nice things you do for me when you're not even my beta. So she's basically convinced you're the perfect pack member."

"Wait." Stiles licks his lips. "She thinks I'd be a good... pack mother?"

"She thinks you fill critical gaps in our current composition of strengths and weaknesses, in her words."

Stiles basks in that for a minute. Derek looks at him steadily, edging on exasperated.

"Don't get over-inflated about it."

"I'm perfectly inflated." Stiles beams at him until Derek rolls his eyes again. "Emphasis on the perfect, apparently."

Derek kicks him out when he won't stop smiling, so Stiles wanders around the giant home for a while and just looks at the millions of pictures up on the walls. He hasn't seen either of Derek's siblings in person, although he's briefly talked with Derek's dad at the nightly pack dinners. Apparently Cora's visiting her pack for the holidays, and Laura's studying abroad for the year. He finds a family photo of them, nestled among family pictures of everyone else in the pack and what must be their kids' packs, and maybe even their packs before they joined this one. It's an interesting puzzle, trying to find the younger versions of the older pack members in the pictures of their original packs. There's thousands of people in all these photos, he realizes, interconnected through both pack bonds and family bonds.

Stiles stops looking at pictures then and sits down on the couch instead, battling with himself.

Derek finds him there eventually. He's already dressed in his pajamas, so it must be night. He sits down next to Stiles on the couch while Stiles watches... whatever's currently on the TV. House Hunters, maybe.

"You weren't in your room," Derek says, his voice soft and cautious like he knows Stiles isn't actually watching TV.

"Just... realizing how right Scott and my dad are about me."

"Stiles."

Derek says his name a lot, Stiles realizes. Just his name. But the way he says it is different every time.

"I could figure it out. I could figure out if dad was lying about my mom's parents dying. Everyone has a Facebook nowadays, right? Or if I have aunts or uncles I never knew about. Cousins, maybe. It would be so easy. But once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. And then I would want to meet them. And that feeling would just burn in me, even though I know they're a bunch of assholes who are just going to reject me." He laughs, humorlessly. He's been struggling not to touch his phone, but he can feel it in his pocket, heavy. "I've never been someone who can just look."

Derek is quiet for a long time. Stiles has gotten used to that, too, the long pauses in their conversations. It's a Derek trademark. Usually Stiles dislikes long silences, but he's comfortable enough with Derek now that it doesn't bother him anymore.

"Especially after seeing all this." It catches in his throat. "Everything I never had. Is this what my mom's pack is like? Why would -- I just don't get why she would leave it all behind. I don't get why any werewolf would ever fall in love with a human. You're just... better. At everything. It's maddening."

Derek makes a sound, and Stiles buries his face in his hands in misery.

"Never expected to hear werewolf supremacy rhetoric coming from you," Derek's voice is edged, so Stiles lifts his face from his hands. "Haven't you learned anything from coming here?"

"Look at you. Look at the werewolves in your pack. Look at this place."

"That's --" Derek breaks off angrily. "It's all an illusion, Stiles. Werewolf families inherit all this money because we subjugated humans for centuries, stealing their wages and giving paying jobs to other were. You think we're beautiful because we brainwashed you with our beauty standards. Almost every model you see in every advertisement is a werewolf."

"What about all your heightened senses? You hearing, your sense of smell. You could crush me in a second. You expect me to think that's a social illusion?" For some reason, Stiles needs to defend his feelings of inadequacy. Maybe so he can rationalize why his pack didn't want him.

"You see those traits as just strengths because you've never experienced them. When's the last time you saw a human in an archaic duel over their friends? Alphas face physical challenges for their betas all the time. It's ridiculous and stupid, but it's still tradition for weres to show off their superior strength." Derek shrugs, an angry gesture. "And that other stuff is as much a curse as a benefit. I'm constantly overwhelmed, Stiles. And so is every werewolf you've ever met. It's impossible to concentrate some days because there's just... so much." Derek considers him for a moment, loosing some of his steam. His next words are gentler. "Humans have a simplicity that's elegant. I like that you can't smell or hear what I can. You keep me focused. Human social hierarchies are less pronounced than ours, and I think that's better. Less bullshit, honestly."

"As an alpha, I'd think you'd benefit the most from the rigid social hierarchies of the were world."

"My pack exhausts me sometimes," Derek tells him. "They look to me for even the smallest group decisions. I hate that."

Stiles sighs and sits back against the couch, feeling like lead both inside and out. And now Derek's angry with him, on top of it all.

"I'll just. I'll never get to ask her why." He can kind of picture his mom's face when he closes his eyes, but it's blurry and soft, through the eyes of a child. "I'll never learn about this side of her. And now I'm feeling so fucking lonely for something I never even had. Something I never knew I needed."

He feels Derek move next to him, but he doesn't open his eyes. He's so low that he wouldn't be surprised if Derek just left him to his self-pitying bullshit. It seems inevitable that his only friend here would leave him to his loneliness, too.

It's strange and unexpected, then, when instead of a cold emptiness next to him he feels warm lips on his own. A warm hand on the back of his neck. A soothing touch on his thigh.

It's such a gentle kiss that Stiles doesn't realize he's being kissed until it's over. 

"You're not alone." It's a whisper on his lips. Stiles just tastes it. "So stop thinking about a pack that doesn't want you when you have one that does."

Stiles clutches at his arm when Derek leans away, pressing their lips back together. He memorizes the taste and feel of it this time. He lets himself feel Derek's hands, lets Derek's words settle in him and fill up the emptiness that crept inside him in the last few hours.

Derek kisses him back, and it's nothing urgent, just soft and gentle and unsure. Uncertain. He pulls back too soon again, but Stiles doesn't have the courage to stop him this time.

A thumb strokes the back of Stiles's neck, curls of hair he let get too long.

"You need to go home," Derek sighs.

Stiles's budding euphoria crashes. He reads Derek's expression as regret, and he's about to get up and leave when Derek follows that up with, "You miss your dad. He's the one with all these answers, not Facebook. He has the most accurate picture of your mom and your mom's pack that you'll get without actually meeting them, which I still don't think you should do. And now he can be honest with you about it all."

Stiles sighs. Derek keeps his hand on the back of his neck, soothing him. Stiles can't help but lean into it.

"Alright." Stiles tries not to say what he's thinking and feeling -- rejected. Derek's looking out for him. But he could have waited half a second after kissing him before kicking him out of his house. "I'll go tomorrow."

"I think you need to."

"Yeah, alright." Stiles bites his tongue when those words come out acidic. He stands up abruptly, leaving Derek on the couch before his tumultuous emotions can erupt all over him.

He sleeps poorly, so he leaves early in the morning. He texts Derek goodbye instead of waking him up. He doesn't know why Derek kissed him like that, and all his eager hopes are mixed up with his natural pessimism. His ignorance of were culture gives him plenty of room for doubt. That kiss could have just been... affection between pack. Or just an expression of comfort. Stiles kissed him the last time he was in the throws of an emotional breakdown, so maybe Derek thinks that's what he needs to calm down now. It doesn't necessarily mean... anything he actually wants it to mean. 

He thinks about it a lot on the drive home. And then he second-guesses every conclusion that he comes to. In the end, he throws out all his thought cycles and decides that he just doesn't know why Derek does half the things that he does.

All he knows is that liked it. He keeps replaying it, touching his lips while he drives.

His dad obviously isn't expecting him when he comes barging through the door with his duffel bag over his shoulder. Stiles can hear the thundering of steps upstairs, then the hurried stomping down the stairs. The anxiety in his expression immediately reawakens Stiles's guilt for leaving him on Christmas day.

"You're home." His dad tries for a smile. It doesn't reach his eyes at all.

Stiles dumps his duffel on the floor.

"I need answers, dad. I'm really trying to resist my nature here, but you're going to have to help me out."

They sit down in the kitchen together, warming their hands on cups of coffee. His grandparents are alive. He almost gets up from the table when he hears that, but he makes himself sit still. It's a good thing he does, because they're every inch the dicks Stiles suspected.

"They cut her off when we got engaged. They kept telling her to break it off with me, and she ignored them. So when we got engaged, they stopped the cash flow to try to starve her out of it. But that didn't sway her. She just got a job at the station with me. We moved in together immediately, and you were born soon after that. They didn't come to the wedding. I know she told them about you, but I've never heard from them. Not even when she passed."

Stiles swallows his raging emotions down so he can get his questions answered and get this over with.

"What about her pack?"

"Her parents were betas. She was a beta. She was born into her pack. She told me she never really liked pack life, and when she came of an age where she could join another pack, she decided not to. If she missed her pack, she never talked to me about it." Noah hesitates, stumbling over his words. "She was happy with us. I don't think she felt like she was missing something."

Of the many things Stiles is feeling, one of them is grief for his dad. He focuses on that because it's the least toxic feeling he can grab onto. He gets up from his chair and pulls his dad into a hug, which Noah returns gratefully.

"You're going to try to contact them, aren't you?"

Stiles buries his face in his dad's shoulder, the old, familiar strength there.

"I'm going to really, really try not to." Stiles focuses on those words, replacing his "no wolfsbane" promise to his dad with this one. "I think I've been craving... some sort of pack. Maybe for a long time, actually. And now I have one. So I'm going to put my energy into that and try to forget about this shitty one."

His dad seems happy with that. He lets Stiles go sit in his room for a long time, sorting through the millions of thoughts in his head. Then he comes up with a photo album, one Stiles has never seen.

"These are all her 'wolfy' pictures, as I call them," he chuckles as he gives Stiles the photo album. "I've been wanting to show these to you for a while now."

Her eyes are gold. She used _feh_ on his dad, Stiles can see it in more than one picture. Then there's one of Stiles and her, and her eyes are a soft gold, not a bright, warning gold like the one where dad's spraying her with the garden hose. A faded color, gentle and sweet. Stiles loves that color more than anything. He takes this picture out and puts it in a frame by his bed.

His dad leaves him with the photo album and promises him that he'll dig up some of her "wolfy" videos, too.

The break passes with halting questions and halting answers. Stiles fills in the holes in his dad's stories about his mother that he always knew were there but never outright questioned. Mom used her were strength to put the fence up in the backyard, not dad, and that's why he doesn't know what an auger is. Mom is the reason all their old appliances are extra quiet models, the kind designed for weres, which Stiles had always wondered about. Mom is the reason dad still doesn't wear cologne or aftershave to this day, because she liked his natural smell much better.

"She used to make me do all the laundry, too. It was ridiculous. Especially when you were a baby and it was nonstop piles for days," Noah tells him, cracking a smile at the memory.

"So she could wear your scent all day." Stiles knows this answer. It makes sense. It's why the weres in Talia's pack thought he was Derek's mate-to-be or whatever.

"It was the weirdest thing to me, but she loved it. And she wanted my scent on you, too." Noah chuckles. "Sometimes I wish I could smell like them. I still have some of her clothes, but the smell for me is mostly gone." 

Stiles files away that conversation in the Hm, That's Funny folder in his brain for things that bother him but he can't really say why.

On January first, he gets a group text from all the werewolves he knows with well wishes. In a separate message, Erica sends a drunk picture of all the betas up at the Hale residence. Derek looks borderline miserable, squeezed between Boyd, Isaac, and Erica, who look substantially more smashed and substantially more cheerful. Stiles grins when he sees it. 

**Me:** _Miss you guys. Where exactly was my invite for this party?  
_

**Curls:** _I told Derek we needed to call you up! But he said not to bother you. Said you and your dad were bonding._

 **Me:** _For future reference, I'm fully capable of both bonding and partying. Dad went to bed at nine last night. He's not really a New Year's kind of guy.  
_

**Eyebrows:** _They wanted to drunk call you at three in the morning. I saved you. Don't mope._

Stiles shakes his head. Of course Derek would consider not inviting him to a party to be a favor. Stiles decides to forget about it rather than add it to the pile of confusion he feels toward the alpha. He and Derek haven't really talked much, but that's probably because he's been busy with his dad, and Derek's been busy with... not calling him and texting him.

That's all fine. He's not nervous about going back to school for the new semester and sitting in a room with him all day every day, not at all. He's not constantly worrying about what that kiss meant or why Derek didn't tell him what it meant or how, despite these uncertainties, he's growing more and more attached to the memory of Derek's lips on his by the day.

Stiles still hasn't really forgiven Scott. But it's a lot of shit to deal with and he doesn't want to call Derek about it, not with all these other thoughts about him getting in the way, so he reopens the door to Scott. And thankfully, Scott steps through.

He feels better about everything by the time winter break ends and he packs his car back up for the short drive to school. He watched the "wolfy" videos with his dad, eventually. They both cried and made the cookie recipe written in his mother's hand writing. Then he marathoned enough old sci fi with Scott to drown most of his lingering sadness. 

He feels good, actually. Much more stable. He may not even break down on Derek this semester. That's the goal, anyway.

He touches his lips a lot on the drive to school. Then he packs that memory away, too, and prepares to pretend like he doesn't think about it every day.


	6. January

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so hard to get out! I wrote it ages ago but the editing process just dragged. I rarely get intense writer's block, but that was it. 
> 
> Anyway, cheers to the next chapter being as easy as this one was difficult to deliver.

Derek's classes don't start until the third, so Stiles has a whole day to sit in his dorm room alone and mull.

In all his free time, he opens up his Hm, That's Weird folder in his head and sorts through the contents again. Then he pulls on pants and shoes and walks to Erica's dorm.

It's quiet on campus. The few students he sees are wandering around in warm coats and red noses, scowling over the start of a new term. He manages to slip into Erica's dorm with a group of particularly irritable students. They don't hold the door open for him, but he catches it anyway. Then it's smooth sailing up to her dorm on the sixth floor.

When he knocks on the door, he hears what he thinks may be the sounds of a werewolf caught off guard inside. Usually the weres around him know what's going to happen before he does -- courtesy of their super-charged senses -- but it's clear that Erica wasn't expecting his knock. He hears quiet cursing and whispers -- from more than one voice.

When the door finally opens Erica is clearly disheveled, her blond curls pulled from their clean ringlets by someone's fingers, the hair on the back of her head just slightly static.

Stiles peeks around her and finds... Lydia?

Lydia is sitting perfectly composed at Erica's desk, seeming bored and annoyed by Stiles's interruption. Her lips are shiny, maybe from lip gloss. Stiles has... other thoughts about that, but he's not stupid enough to voice most of them. 

"So you two, huh?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Erica replies breathlessly, tucking a curl frantically behind her ear. 

"You're about as good at lying as I am," Stiles points out, unable to hold back a grin. "Why the secrecy, exactly? You know Derek already knows."

"Fuck," Erica mutters. "I figured. I just... wanted to keep it to myself for a while longer."

"So that's over, then?" Lydia drawls from the desk. "But what will be left with the thrill of secrecy gone?"

Erica steps back so Stiles can come in. The air is thick and heavy, and Stiles didn't know what sex smelled like before but now he does. He continues not to comment, partly because he's the one who barged in here. But they also might assume his weak human nose is oblivious to it all, and he's embarrassed Erica enough for one day.

"This is an apt situation to bring up our conversation topic of the day: lying!" Stiles grins at her brightly. "You get three guesses about what."

Erica looks at him blankly, eschewing the bed and instead sinking onto Lydia's lap. Lydia looks startled, then pleased as she wraps her arms around Erica's waist.

Stiles is a little bit into it, but he can compartmentalize.

"I'm serious, you get three guesses."

"Um. Is this about when you asked if that orange shirt made you look fat and I said no?"

"What? It so did no-- you know what, never mind. Way to put me in a worse mood, though."

Erica chews a nail and smiles at him guiltily.

"So... you actually forgot what you did. Which makes you an even bigger asshole than previously assumed."

"Erica, even I know what he's talking about." Lydia rests her chin on Erica's shoulder, clearly bored. "And yes, you're right. She did forget. Maybe some clues will help." 

"Well, someone better tell me before I get my claws out."

"Laundry." Stiles ticks one finger up. "Sitting close. Massages. Smelling good. Showing your neck."

"Oh." Erica starts to giggle, then holds a hand up to her mouth. "Oh, shit. You know, then."

" _Oh shit_ is right, you asshole." Stiles tries to glare, but it doesn't work. His mouth won't obey, and it keeps twitching into a smile when Erica re-dissolves into giggles. "You convinced me to _flirt_ with Derek, were-style. You thought that would be hilarious, did you? With me trying so hard to make friends, and-- and-- Derek all awkward, and what exactly was the endgame here? Both of us dying of mortification because Derek never got the nerve to tell me what I was doing, so I just flirted obliviously with him in perpetuity? This is some villain-level concoction. Machiavellian. Like, Lex Luther or Khan kind of real-life shitposting."

"In all fairness, Stiles, you were doing an exceptional job." Erica giggles again. "And clearly Derek doesn't mind. I don't see a lot of awkward between the two of you. Kind of backfired, actually, given that I ended up with a little crush on you in the end... Anyway, that's how I forgot. Thought you were just doing it on your own now."

"Incorrect. There's a fuck ton of awkward. It's so awkward, in fact, that Derek's never actually asked me to stop! We are so far past the point of awkward that Derek's just... given up."

"He hasn't, though." Erica arches an eyebrow. "Normally, this would have ended on day one. He would have shut you down the moment you touched his laundry. And there's no fucking way he would have let you touch him, let alone sit that close -- you know, the way you two sit every day at lunch. We've all seen it."

" _Normally?_ " Stiles grumbles. "This is the definition of a normal situation."

"Are you truly this thick?" Lydia wonders with a deep sigh. "Erica tells you to do your roommate's laundry and you just _do it?_ Erica, he wrecked two packs in one night alone. We need to just spell this out before he bulldozes through your pack again."

"Whoah, whoah -- no packs have been _wrecked_. Certainly not by me. Erica and Derek are cool again. I don't even -- Kira and Scott? Is that the wreckage to which you are referring? Because they are disgustingly into each other, and I do mean disgusting if you have to listen to the things I do as Scott's best friend. I count that as a success. Also, I'm a single child. I have no idea what's normal with roommates." Then, into the awkward silence, he says "That... sounded less pathetic in my head."

Lydia's lip curls in a distinctly predatory way.

"Stiles, you're still new to packs," Erica says, more gently than he's heard her speak before. "How do you think Lydia and I found each other?"

"Found? We all know each other. You didn't have to 'find' each other."

"I was in love with Kira, you doof," Lydia snaps at him, her eyes flaring gold. Erica looks distinctly uncomfortable on her lap. "Then you went and hooked her up with... the human."

Stiles takes a moment to re-assess the situation, his mouth half-open in an abandoned retort. It takes too long, so Erica swoops in to save him from Lydia's glare.

"Stiles, I'll spell it out for you. I liked you. You clearly liked Derek. Lydia clearly, but I guess not so clearly to you, liked Kira. Kira and Scott hooked up. You shut me down. Lydia and I..."

"You rebounded together." Stiles winces at his own blunt dot connecting. "And what do you mean I 'clearly' liked Derek? You tricked me into all that stuff!"

"You enjoyed every second of your faux-beta courting." Erica laughs. "Don't deny it. You were gobbling up every touch from Derek, and when he looked at you with _rhees_ \--" 

"Hold up. Stop. What the fuck is that?" Stiles is tired of the werewolf terms. He would much rather they be called things like head-tilt or eye-flashy or extra-eye-flashy -- much more descriptive and human-friendly terms, in his opinion.

"It's that steady glow in our eyes when we're feeling... strong affection," Erica says carefully. Lydia looks away from him, staring at the wall instead. "It's usually intentional. We can control when we show it and when we don't. It's also considered... private. It's not something you do in public."

"I thought that was _thiming_?" Stiles thumps his head against the wall. "Y'all just love to gate-keep us humans with your fancy were terms, don't you?"

"That's only on the full moon. That's not controllable. And that's not tied to affection in the least." Lydia's eyes flash with annoyance at his obviously incorrect assumption. 

Stiles thinks of the photograph he framed of his mother, her eyes that gentle gold color that he instinctively loved. Then he realizes he's seen _rhees_ on Derek, too, when Stiles was giving him a massage and Derek just... looked at him.

"So that... _rhees_. Coming from Derek that's, like, a come-on?" He can hear the hope in his voice, and he winces at the sound of it. 

"I don't think... 'come-on' is... exactly -- it's a way of communicating your feelings."

"It's the were L-word." Lydia's sigh is the epitome of annoyance. "Stop beating around the bush, E."

Stiles can feel his face go hot with the implications.

"Given your track record, you'll excuse me if I don't entirely believe you." Stiles stands up. "I don't know if you're doing this because I... disrupted your dating interests or whatever, but this isn't cool, guys. I mean girls. I mean. Ladies. _Fuck_." Stiles is more flustered than he expected when he barged into this room. The tables have turned. Erica was supposed to be properly shamed by the end of this conversation, not bouncing gleefully in her new girlfriend's lap. "Not cool!" he repeats before he stomps out the door.

"Thought you said I was a shit liar!" Erica calls down the hallway at him.

It's a long walk back to his dorm. It's not much of a detour to duck into the library. He could look it up on his phone, but he doesn't totally trust the internet to tell him the truth. So he buries himself in the languages section and digs out an archaic, leather-bound werewolf dictionary that can't possibly lie to him and looks up _rhees._ He has to sort through three different dialects before he finds the right one, with what he thinks is the proper spelling. After a long conversation with Derek about dialects following a particularly embarrassing mis-pronunciation, it was impossible to forget that Derek's pack speaks the were language that originated in old Spain. 

Then he pulls out his phone.

Thessaly greets him with confusion, then excitement when he explains who he is.

"You left! We never got to sit down and chat, I was so disappointed."

"I'm sorry, something came up. A family thing. I had to leave suddenly." Stiles chews his bottom lip, sliding to the floor, safe and alone between the shelves of books. "Um. What did Mrs. Hale tell you about me?"

"She's very complimentary of you. You should be pleased," Thessaly tells him, her voice all warm approval. "She said you and Derek would be very compatible mates."

Stiles takes a long moment to answer.

"Did she. So she wanted you to talk to me about..."

"About being with a werewolf. That's what you wanted to chat about, correct?"

There's a long pause.

"Oh dear. Oh no," Thessaly squeaks. "I said something I shouldn't have."

"Actually." Stiles is so glad he's alone. His face is on fire. "What- um, what's that like?"

"Good! Not much to compare it to, Peter and I have been together so long." Thessaly sighs. Stiles waits for more from her, but it doesn't come. Clearly the ball is in his court.

"Okay." Stiles pauses. "I... just learned about _rhees._ Sounds like that's um, an expression of, um, _affection_ , usually between family members. Anything else like that?"

"Yes, rhees is very important. Smell is big for them. My husband likes me to fold his clothes so he can keep my scent close to him during the day. It was a big deal for him when I started doing that, one of the first things he asked for when we got married. Also touching each other whenever possible helps to mingle scents. Only weres who are very close or romantically involved touch each other, if they can help it."

Yikes.

"Okay. Thanks, Thessaly. I've got to -- um. Go." Live in a cabin outside of society to escape his humiliation. "Can I call you if I have more... I mean, Derek gets kind of..." _embarrassed_ , Stiles realizes. He knew that, but he'd assumed the reasons behind it were much different. "There are just some were things that are hard for him to say out loud, I guess." 

"Of course, dear." She sounds overly delighted. Thrilled, even. "Next time call me when you have more time to talk, alright? And enjoy dating. You're both young things."

"Yup. Thanks."

Stiles hangs up and buries his face in his hands. His life is such an inexplicable mess. Not always a bad mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Derek is coming back tonight. Stiles doesn't even know what that means anymore. By Erica's logic, and by the true words of the leather-bound were dictionary still on his lap, Derek has actual feelings for him. But, he's never said a word. But his eyes said the words for him, didn't they? It seems like that's how werewolves say they like each other, with the soft-glow-thing that they call _rhees._ Apparently Derek could have chosen not to show him, but he did. He totally, deliberately looked at Stiles and turned his eyes into two (slightly frightening) crimson night lights.

Stiles's heart is pounding, his palms are sweating. He's smiling to himself. Although, he's still genuinely considering finding a cabin in Montana to hide away in, so there's that.

Stiles carefully puts the book back on the shelf where he found it.

Derek tells him things in ways he knows Stiles won't understand. His pack knew his feelings way before Stiles knew, or could be expected to figure out, what _rhees_ meant. And Derek's supposed to be teaching Stiles about werewolf things -- this is his no holds barred question time -- so that feels like purposeful withholding of information.

Two can play at that game, really. Which gives Stiles a wicked idea. 

He heads back to their room and cleans compulsively out of nerves, washing both their bed sheets and actually using Derek's duster to dust things. He didn't know that dusting was an actual thing until the red-eyed alpha whipped the duster out one night with a mumbled ramble about dust mites and dead skin cells. Then Stiles couldn't sleep wondering what dust mites smell like, or if they even have a smell.

It keeps him busy until Talia sweeps into the room, all put-together, powerful grace, and gathers Stiles into a hug that Stiles buries into. She asks him questions steadily about how things worked out with his father. Stiles answers on nervous auto-pilot, Derek watching them with a hint of exasperation after he follows her through the door.

"So it all worked out in the end!" Talia concludes with a warm smile, squeezing his shoulders. "I'd like to meet your father, now that it's all settled."

He's trying not to look at Derek because he knows when he does he won't be able to stop.

"That reminds me, I talked to Thessaly. Finally. She was... very helpful."

Stiles considers winking, but Derek's _right_ there.

"Lovely. Keep that line open. And my line, as you know, is also open for any questions, or just to complain about my son's compulsive tidiness."

"Hey," Derek grunts. Stiles still doesn't look at him.

"You have many wonderful qualities, Derek. But let's not pretend you're easy to live with." Talia smiles gently at her son. "He makes a great steak, you may be interested to know. Next time you're over, maybe he'll show off for you."

"Okay, think it's time to go now, mom," Derek says, and Stiles beams at the little slip. Or is it a slip? Talia didn't seem too careful with what she told Thessaly. Maybe she was hoping to "accidentally" spill the beans to him, one way or another.

She gives her traditional kiss on the cheek to both of them before she sweeps out the door as suddenly as she arrived. Stiles always feels like she's just taking a breath from her packed schedule of important things, like running countries or arranging foreign leader's harems. She seems like she would be good at cultivating harems.

It's abruptly just the two of them. Stiles can't see anything in the room but Derek. His heart starts to thud painfully in his chest, and he knows Derek can hear it because he frowns with confusion.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Derek's lips curve into something suspiciously smile-like.

"Why are you so nervous?" he asks slowly. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. No one. It's none of your damn business," Stiles sputters, because unfair. Derek is not fucking allowed to use his werewolf powers to root through Stiles's emotions when he kept Stiles in the dark on his own feelings for who knows how long.

"Alright. Settle down." Derek holds his hands up briefly, disgruntled as he passes by Stiles to crash on his bed. "How was your break after you left?"

"Oh, now you want to know?" Stiles asks with a touch of real bitterness. "There are these things called phones. You could have texted and asked."

"I didn't want to bother you."

It's the same excuse that he used to not invite Stiles to Talia's pack's New Year's party. Luckily Stiles sees right through it this time, otherwise he might be genuinely hurt by the thin excuse.

"Mhmm." He sits down on his bed, surveying Derek's relaxed posture as he stares at his ceiling.

"Five hours driving around with my mom, shopping for things I don't need." Derek closes his eyes. "Five hours."

Stiles doesn't pull the dead mom card because he's actually feeling very warm and glowy about his mom right now, but he does think it. Then he thinks how nice it must be to be able to get tired of your mom. He probably would, too, if he could.

"So. Teaching time for Stiles."

"What is that?"

"That's where I ask you werewolf questions and you answer honestly."

"Why would I answer any way but honestly?" Derek rolls onto his side, his eyebrow quirked with interest.

"I've been thinking back to before the break -- that night we played truth and dare. There was so much going on that I forgot to ask you about a few things."

Derek's eyebrows both go up for a second before his expression settles into something neutral; a calm facade that Stiles can see ripples behind only because he knows Derek relatively well now. Stiles wonders what his heartbeat sounds like, though, beneath that sheer willpower. If only Stiles were more than half were.

"What things?"

"Your eyes. It looked like you were _thiming_. Is that what was happening?"

"...No. It's something weres do to show... approval."

Well, that's close enough to the truth to almost be the truth. Stiles puts on his most innocent expression, blinks his eyes wide and tilts his head to the side. Derek's eyes dart to his neck.

"What's the were term for it if it's not _thiming_?"

Derek swallows that question like it's a lemon.

"How about I give you a list of vocab to memorize later? Over the summer. That way we can just focus on school-mandated memorization right now."

"Okay." Stiles lets it go. Clearly Derek doesn't want him to go snooping around about _rhees_ and finding exactly what he's already found. Which is kind of dumb, since he could have just... not shown him _rhees_ in the first place if he didn't want him to snoop about it. "So then why did Erica and Isaac do that weird posture when they came in and saw your eyes like that?" 

Derek fully freezes for a long moment before tiny movement comes back into his body -- a twitch of his hand here, a nervous fidget of his toe here.

"They were... deferring. And apologizing for interrupting us. Boyd is my closest friend, so he didn't feel like he was interrupting. He's always been bolder with me than Erica and Isaac." 

"Interrupting us?" Stiles smiles faintly. "Interrupting you... showing me _approval_ , right? So that, more than anything else the betas have done, warranted a serious were-apology? I've never seen them do that before."

"Who's hands were on who?" Derek asks sourly. "You act like it was just me."

"I was just helping you out!" Stiles insists. "Your neck was all crooked from trying to murder the computer with your glare for hours."

"Whatever." Derek rolls his eyes. He looks more relaxed at their return to now-familiar bickering. But Stiles doesn't want him relaxed. Derek is hiding from him, and he doesn't like it.

"Ok, so, if I'm your beta and I want to apologize for some grave offense, I go like this?"

He stands up and copies the position to the best of his recollection -- tilting his head to the side almost comically far while lowering his face toward the ground. Then he crosses his hands behind his back and waits.

He can feel Derek's stillness on the bed, feel how the air goes a bit stale and strange. Then Derek slowly gets up and walks over to him. Stiles doesn't look up, his eyes resolutely fixed on the floor, until he feels a light touch on the part of his neck that's exposed.

"Don't," Derek says softly, pained. His hand settles on Stiles's collarbone, firm and warm. "Don't."

"Okay." Stiles relaxes. Derek's expression is as distressed as his voice. "I stopped. It's okay."

"That was... correct," Derek struggles to say, searching Stiles's eyes with obvious worry. "But don't do it again. Not unless you have a very good reason." 

"Alright," Stiles says, his voice soft to match Derek's. Stiles didn't expect this level of genuine concern from his pretend apology posture. He was pretending mostly just to goad Derek into explaining his feelings. Looks like he incited the wrong feelings. 

Derek's hand is still warm on the juncture of his shoulder and neck. Steadying. It reminds Stiles of what Thessaly said about touch and scent.

"When there's an obvious reason for it, that means you're apologizing to me. When I don't know why..." Derek hesitates. "It's a beta's way of communicating that I -- their alpha -- hurt them unintentionally."

"Oh." Stiles takes in his continuing concern. "Oh, shit. No, I'm fine. You didn't do anything. It was just... practice."

"I know that." Derek swallows and takes his hand off of Stiles's shoulder. "But I didn't like it."

"I see that." Stiles takes in the flush high on Derek's sculpted, high cheekbones. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for." Derek backs away from him, stumbling onto his bed. Generally, Derek doesn't stumble, he gracefully falls. "Just... some things take practice to understand. Like how words can have different meanings in different contexts."

"Like desert and dessert."

"...Sure." Derek smiles slightly, indulgently, and Stiles feels relieved to see it. He takes his opportunity to change the subject.

"So catch me up on your break first. Then I'll go."

They talk for what might be hours. Stiles hates him a little bit for not calling or texting over the break, especially when Derek drinks in his stories and then asks insightful, interesting questions like he actually gives a lot of shits about Stiles's emotional epiphanies. He also has some insights into weres and things Stiles saw his mom do in her "wolf videos", which leads them down the rabbit hole of maternal were behavior. 

When they wind down, Stiles realizes they missed dinner with the pack. He checks his phone to find five missed texts from the betas on their pack group chat.

"They are so needy sometimes."

"They missed you." Derek looks at his phone, too. "They saw enough of me on New Year's."

Stiles wanted to see more of Derek on New Year's too, but whatever. He can take his time and be patient. He can slowly torture Derek with faux innocent questions and plausibly naive beta flirting. Or actually naive mistakes that make Derek look like Stiles kicked him. Whatever.

So the betas pile into their tiny dorm a little later, and it's both Christmas and New Year's again. Stiles got them all gifts. Boyd gets misty when he sees the motorcycle gloves Stiles bought -- high-quality leather. Isaac gets a scarf. Erica gets lipstick that she puts on immediately and then kisses Stiles's mirror. Stiles doesn't wipe it off -- he feels like it's a nice symbol of how things have healed between them, finally.

"We got you a pack gift!" Erica exclaims, pulling her giant purse up from next to Derek's bed and rifling through it. "We all chipped in. But mostly Derek. And his mother."

Stiles grins with uninhibited excitement.

He tears through the packaging quickly because it looks like a book and it feels like a book and Stiles thinks it's a book.

"Is this signed?" Stiles gapes at the beautiful copy of _Robot Dreams_ in his hands, flipping to the title page with excruciating care. "It's fuckin' signed. You guys."

Stiles tears up. He carefully flips to the end, where there's an original illustration. Then he rubs at his eyes before he looks up. Derek's smiling, a rare, happy smile.

"You assholes," Stiles says, without totally understanding why he's cursing at them. "Can't believe..."

"Group gifts have to be cool. Calm down." Erica smiles and noogies him briefly. Stiles squawks and holds the book far away from their squished bodies, not wanting to risk anything. "Derek saw you looking at auctions on eBay."

"That was mere curiosity." And envy. "You all rock."

"You can orgasm over it later. Put that away somewhere safe so we can all get drunk on wolfsbane together."

"I promised my dad I wouldn't." Stiles bites his lip.

"That was just so you wouldn't figure out you're a were," Isaac points out. "Now it doesn't matter."

Stiles likes that reasoning. He's not 100% sure it's true, but he'll ask his dad later. Right now he's happy to live in the moral grey area with his new friends -- maybe pack -- and celebrate the new year a second time with them.

"Didn't we drink enough on New Year's?" Derek complains, of course.

Isaac and Erica dole out drinks for everyone, and Boyd makes a very short toast to the new year and to new friends and new journeys. Stiles sips his drink to avoid the sudden dizziness of Halloween. Sipping turns out to be all the difference, as he's an extreme lightweight who gets pleasantly buzzed off of just a few ounces.

The betas don't leave until well into the night. He passes out before he sees Isaac leave, and he finds him under the bed in the morning when he gets up, somewhat achy and bloated, for his first class of the new semester.

Life speeds up again, consumed by adjusting to new classes and new teachers. Plus, navigating the Study Pack, which Lydia has returned to as a sort of begrudging second tutor for the betas. He thinks that means they're cool again, especially after he sees Erica and her holding pinkies under the table when he packs up his books in his bag.

"Why am I taking an archaeology class again?" Boyd grumbles at the end of the second week of classes when they're walking back from the Ancient Studies building to the lunch room.

"I would guess it fulfilled a general requirement. But you are the master of your schedule."

"No. My advisor is the master of my schedule. I just want to graduate on time with a business degree."

"Well. Then. Ask him." Stiles bites back a grin at Boyd's genuine bewilderment over his situation.

It gives him an idea. Probably a bad one.

"Speaking of advising... I was hoping you could help me out with Derek."

Boyd eyes him and Stiles knows he needs to tread lightly.

"Nothing big. Nothing terrible. I just think... there might be something between us. And I'd like for him to confirm that before I make an ass of myself to my roommate."

"So you want him to make an ass of himself to his roommate first?" Boyd surmises wisely.

"No, no. I'd just like, you know, a little were help in getting him to confess his undying love for me. That's all."

"Jesus." Boyd breathes out sharply. "I do not want to be in the middle of this."

"Well, when I asked Erica about this, she tricked me, so her advising privileges are temporarily suspended. And Isaac's only been in the pack the last year. You know him the best. Please, dude."

Boyd rubs his chin. Stiles thinks that's a good sign -- a contemplative sign. But then Boyd's silent for most of the walk to the dining hall, which kind of dashes Stiles's hopes. He's just about to raise another subject when Boyd stops, abruptly, and looks around them like he's checking no one they know is within hearing.

"Derek's got... a possessive streak in him. It's an alpha thing." Boyd hesitates. "You want him to actually do something? Show him you're still up for grabs."

"You mean, like, flirt with someone else?" That doesn't feel right to even say. "I didn't know I was flirting with him in the first place. That's probably why it worked. I'm actually terrible at flirting on purpose -- you can confirm with Scott."

"No, flirting with others would just make him think you don't like him. Do you have any exes?"

"Exes?" Stiles blanches. "Why?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to visit one." Boyd shrugs. "Just to remind Derek that you weren't single before and you won't be single forever."

"I'm still cool with Malia," Stiles thinks aloud. "She was interested in applying here, I think. She's a year behind me. I could offer to show her around campus."

"Something benign like that, yeah. Just don't do what you did at Halloween," Boyd says with a knowing look of exasperation. Then he scans their surroundings again before he starts walking. "That's it. That's all I'm doing. And I don't want you telling Derek I even did that much."

"My lips are totally sealed, dude. And you're the best."

Stiles wastes no time, mostly because he's already out of patience with waiting for Derek to just do... something. Derek continues to act like there's nothing big between them. Stiles asks him endless questions about werewolves, he wears his tightest jeans, and he totally takes his time changing now when he gets ready for school, even though Derek pointedly doesn't look. He sends Derek memes of starfish butts and does _thiktan_ at the correct moments. But nothing.

He texts Malia during lunch, making no effort to hide what he's doing. Finally, Isaac bites.

"Who's that girl you're hugging on your phone?"

"That's my ex." Stiles shrugs. "I just never changed her contact photo when we broke up."

"Who?" Derek asks darkly, his eyes flicking to Stiles's screen.

Stiles grins. He can't help it. He holds up the phone so Derek can see the whole charade better.

"Her name's Malia. She's graduating this year and she wants to check out our school. I told her I'd show her around."

Erica goes very still, biting her lower lip. Boyd continues to eat calmly.

Derek seems to struggle with his face before he decides to follow Boyd's example. 

The rest of lunch passes in a strange and uncomfortable silence, broken only by Isaac's nervous monologue about sea turtle mating rituals that he learned about in his new biology class.

"So this Malia. She might be here next year," Derek mutters later that night, out of absolutely nowhere. Stiles is reading his new Asimov and has completely forgotten about his lunchtime romantic baiting, so it takes him a moment to respond. 

"Yeah. Maybe."

"What's she like?" Derek asks, thumbing the edges of his chemistry book and looking directly at Stiles with far too much intensity.

"She's... cool? I guess? She was home-schooled, so she doesn't really get social situations sometimes."

"Hm." Derek watches him. "What else?"

"What do you want to know?" Stiles licks his lip, wondering how far to push this. "Are you interested in her from her picture?"

Derek scoffs, genuinely scathing, and rolls his eyes before he turns back to his chemistry book.

Stiles thinks that's that until, ten minutes later, Derek comes back with --

"Maybe I'm looking to recruit her into our pack."

The look he throws over his shoulder, daring Stiles to say something about it, leaves Stiles frozen for a moment. They stare at each other, and Stiles thinks maybe Derek's about to actually break the silence with something real. But then he turns back to his homework.

It's a tense night. But not as tense as Saturday morning, when Malia arrives in-person with Scott at their dorm room door.

"Long time no see," Malia says. Stiles taught her that one. Her parents weren't ones for things like common phrases and pop culture.

They hug, though it's perfunctory. Stiles can feel Derek's eyes on his back.

"You look good," he says, just to be an ass. Malia seems pleased by the compliment, at least. Scott is avoiding looking in Derek's direction, like someone avoiding the eyes of a dangerous predator.

They leave together, and a chill goes through Stiles as he closes the door on Derek. He hopes that wasn't too much -- not Halloween's level, as Boyd warned him -- and tries to focus on actually being helpful to Malia as they start to chat about majors and parts of campus she might be interested in.

Only Scott and Kira sit with them for lunch. Even though Stiles invited the whole pack, curiously, everyone has other things going on. It's almost as if a certain grumpy, jealous alpha told them not to come.

"Your roommate looks intense," Malia comments. "He was kind of glaring at me."

Stiles grins.

"Don't take it personally. He glares at me all the time."

"Is he a werewolf? He kind of moved like a werewolf."

"What do you mean?" Stiles asks.

"You know how they move. Too fast, too controlled," Scott points out. Kira looks at him closely, so he quickly clarifies. "Not that that's a bad thing, it's just different from humans."

"Stiles doesn't have human friends here," Kira supplies. "So if you came here, he'd have someone to talk to about... human things. Like...?" Kira trails off, looking to Scott for answers.

"Um. Not having glowing eyes?" Scott tries.

"Not being able to hear when people are lying," Stiles adds. That one freaked him out. 

"Come on, what are some _real_ human problems?" Kira prods, looking genuinely curious.

"Being in love with a werewolf but not speaking their were language," Stiles grumbles.

Scott drops his fork and Kira's eyebrows go up. Malia takes in their reactions with a wise silence.

"In love, huh," Scott says to his plate. "Seems like the kind of thing you might have mentioned to your very human best friend before today."

Scott's clearly hurt by this omission, but it isn't the audience to get into a discussion about it. Stiles just shrugs.

"I didn't totally acknowledge it until recently. But it's become difficult to ignore."

"Is it your roommate?" Malia asks, grinning as she nibbles her bread. Kira's eyebrows go up again.

"Possibly."

"Stiles." Scott just looks at him. " _Stiles."_

"You know I'm an alpha, right?" Kira grins at him. "I could have been helping you this whole time."

Stiles stares at her.

"I hate that you just said that. I've been asking all his betas for help. Erica was the worst. The jury's still out on Boyd's advice."

"What was it?" Kira asks.

Stiles glances at Malia. This is, again, clearly not the moment for full-blown honesty. He doesn't know what he was thinking, bringing this up right now. He is merely a product of pure, unfettered frustration. 

"Just, you know... laundry."

Scott's jaw drops.

"You've been doing your roommate's laundry? _Are you serious?"_

Kira cackles.

"That'll do it. Scent mixing is such a turn-on."

Scott goes from gaping at Stiles to looking at Kira with interest.

"Is it?"

"You wanna wear my sweater sometime?" Kira licks her lips and flashes her alpha eyes. Scott goes a little funny-looking and Stiles just groans.

The real test of whether Boyd's advice worked comes when Stiles returns to their dorm room later that day. Derek is working on homework at his desk, but he stops everything when Stiles enters.

Stiles watches his nostrils flare, his pale eyes taking in all of Stiles as he shrugs out of his coat and unwraps his scarf.

"So you don't seem to like Malia very much. She told me you glared at her?"

"I glare at everyone," Derek defends himself. Stiles snorts.

"Alright."

"Alright."

"You realize you're glaring at me right now?" Stiles points out, cocking one eyebrow.

Derek just snarls at him before he goes back to his homework.

As Derek continues his foul temper the rest of the day and up until they turn the lights off, Stiles has to conclude that he is, indeed, jealous. But somehow that victorious flavor isn't as sweet and juicy as he thought it would be. He finds himself staring at Derek's back as he struggles to drift off to sleep, wondering what his roommate is thinking and if there will ever be less of this gaping distance between them. 


	7. February

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you are all healthy and safe <3.
> 
> Just a quick warning -- brief, but explicit, sex scenes in this chapter. Calling this an M fic was a bit conservative.

Stiles's frustration boils over a few days later.

Dinner has been overtaken by Isaac's newfound love of biology yet again -- stories of bonobo videos he watched in class leaving most of the pack with their eyes glazed over -- when Boyd looks directly at Stiles and asks the group, "So what's everyone's Valentine's day plans?"

"I'm free day of," Erica announces with a gleam in her eye. "But on the weekend Lyds and I are doing a spa day."

"So that's what girlfriends do," Isaac thinks aloud.

"Isaac?" Boyd prompts.

Isaac grows instantly gloomy and droops over the table in a clear sign of defeat.

"Alright. What about you, Derek?"

"Nothing." Derek shrugs. He keeps his eyes on his food. "You want to do our usual pizza night?"

And then it's abruptly too much. Stiles mumbles something about a study session for philosophy and gets up, tossing his tray and hurrying from the dining hall.

He'd forgotten about Valentine's day, which he secretly loves. He's a giant-teddy-bear, Frank-Sinatra-blaring, roses-and-quartets public gestures kind of guy. Back in high school he'd spent a ton of time planning extravagant Valentine's days that usually fell flat. It stings that he's never had a Valentine's day pan out. Malia was the exception, but even she didn't appreciate most of his detailed romantic planning. 

The thought of trying to do something like that for Derek... leaves him frozen with fear.

He's tried just opening his mouth, but nothing comes out. Every time he does he remembers that Derek's his roommate, and all his friends' alpha, and the alpha of the pack he wants to join. And then he thinks about how Derek has actively resisted telling him his feelings all this time. Even if it's true that he returns his feelings, which Stiles thinks he does, what if there's some deeper reason he'll still reject him? Everything that he's carefully built -- his living situation, his friend group, his potential pack -- could get irrevocably messed up. 

He kicks his feet at the ground as he walks back to his dorm, battling the stinging in his eyes and his chest. He doesn't even notice Scott and Kira until they're right in front of him, yelling his name.

"What are you even thinking about?" Kira peers up at him with concern. "We've been calling your name since the sociology building."

"Scott? What are you doing here on a weekday?"

"Just visiting Kira." 

"You two are gross." Stiles winces. "Please don't tell me your Valentine's day plans."

Kira's expression softens, and Stiles hates the knowing look they exchange.

"Why don't I teach you some stuff, Stiles?" Kira offers. "About alphas."

"No." Stiles shakes his head, his chest tight. "I can't. It's not... nothing's happening. It's useless."

Kira's face softens further into obvious sympathy. Scott frowns.

"I'm still not convinced that alpha is worth all this. He's so... bad tempered."

"Can't help it." Stiles just shrugs. "Even when he scowls. I just... can't help it."

Scott sighs audibly and Kira presses closer to him.

"The heart wants what it wants."

"Should I just talk to Derek?" Scott asks, looking too serious. "Get it all out in the open since you're having a such a hard time?"

"No. We're roommates." Stiles shakes his head. "It's too complicated... sorry guys, I've got to go." He can feel his eyes stinging again, so he turns on his heel and walks away. 

Only a minute after he closes the door to his dorm, it opens again. Stiles keeps his eyes down as Derek comes in, shrugging out of his coat before dropping down on his bed. Stiles buried himself in his philosophy reading as a distraction, but his eyes repeat the same sentence over and over as his frustration drips endlessly in the back of his mind. 

After a moment, he becomes aware that Derek is staring at him. He ignores it at first, but the feeling doesn't go away. 

"What," Stiles asks, flatly. 

"Can you put that down." It's a gentle question. 

Stiles closes _The Prince_ and forces himself to look at him. Derek's expression is strangely soft, almost sweet. Stiles swallows the surge of longing it brings him. 

A characteristic Derek Silence follows, which Stiles is forced to weather. Derek is clearly struggling with something, but Stiles doesn't care much what it is, at the moment. 

Then, to Stiles's surprise, Derek gets up and relocates to the foot of Stiles's bed, sitting by Stiles's feet. He looks more determined when he does, like he's decided something. 

"Even though I'm bad-tempered, will you go... on a date... with me. This Valentine's day." 

His entire face is red when he says it. Stiles feels like he's floating up out of his body because this can't be real. He replays the words in his head, looking for some other way to interpret them. 

"What?" The single, confused word escapes him. 

"I--" Derek breaks off, his face somehow turning even redder. "I thought you looked upset. So I followed you back, and I didn't mean to... but I heard what you were talking about." 

"What?" Stiles says again, faintly. 

"Unless you were talking about another bad-tempered alpha you know," Derek tries, rolling his eyes in what looks suspiciously like an embarrassed panic. 

"...What?" Stiles is broken. This is all he can say. 

"I know you have no idea what you've been doing. But you've been torturing me. And I. I should have told you to stop, but I... I didn't want you to." Derek's eyebrows are contorted in ways Stiles hasn't seen before. "There are things you don't understand as a human, and I should have explained them." 

"Are you talking about the stupid laundry thing?" Stiles is so disoriented his out-of-body experience is turning into lightheaded dizziness. 

"You knew?" Derek goes less red. "All this time? And it's not stupid. It... meant a lot."

"No, not all this time. I found out a month ago." This is better. Stiles can verbalize facts, like timelines. "But people have brought it up. Repeatedly."

"And you've still been doing it," Derek surmises slowly, with a hint of a smile.

"Well. Yeah." Stiles shrugs.

"You understand what scent mixing is to a werewolf," Derek prods carefully.

"I understand scent mixing." Stiles takes a deep breath. "And _rhees_. And deliberate touching. Yeah, I get it. Or at least, I think I get it." 

Derek's face returns to its earlier tomato color. 

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Same reasons you didn't." 

"No." Derek shakes his head. "It's not the same. I was going to be your alpha, and I was the alpha of your only friends here. I had a responsibility not to pressure you. You didn't."

Stiles fish-gapes at him, dumbfounded.

"You know what? This is an argument for later. Because regardless of all that, you just asked me out. For real this time. And I'll fucking take it." 

Derek's frown softens gradually into a smile, one that Stiles can truly appreciate and soak in.

"So. Valentine's day is kind of a lot of pressure to put on a first date. And also, it's a whole week off. Does that mean I can't make any moves on you until then?"

Derek's smile grows. Then he puts a hand on Stiles's ankle, just resting there comfortably. Just like when he looked at Stiles with _rhees_. Stiles shivers with pleasure.

"What kind of moves were you thinking of making?"

"Well. We have all this time to ourselves in this little room." 

"Hmm."

"There's just a lot of possibilities in that. And opportunities." 

Derek's eyes are sparkling with amusement and warmth. Stiles loves it. He sits up, bringing them closer. Then he traces Derek's hand on his ankle, just feeling the touch of his skin. Derek's breath catches when he does, and they both watch their hands slowly intertwine.

"Why don't we just... feel it out."

Stiles laughs. It comes out a lot more nervous than he thinks he is.

"Um. That could encompass a lot of things. So maybe we should set some expectations."

"I honestly don't have any. Only that you spend Valentine's day with me, not Malia. Or anyone else."

Stiles snorts.

"You have to know I don't have feelings for Malia. I just did that to try to make you a little jealous."

"Did you." Derek looks less than pleased. "It worked."

"Yeah, I could tell."

"Why didn't you say anything," this time it comes out a wistful sigh. Derek leans forward and brushes his lips to Stiles's sweetly. "Don't do that again. I'll get a complex about you and girls, and neither of us wants that."

"Deal. Yeah. I can -- I can do that." Stiles can definitely do that. He's done with girls, maybe forever now. As long as Derek keeps touching him he would swear off sweets or pizza or. Breathing. Fine. Cool. Whatever Derek asks for, he gets right now.

"I don't think I was much good at making you jealous, anyway."

"I think you were too good at it."

Derek is kissing him a little deeper this time, his big hands cradling Stiles's head to keep him still. Stiles has fallen into a heavenly abyss, sprouted wings, and is soaring through the air high above all his insignificant problems. Derek smells of everything attractive, and the tickle of his stubble feels right all the way down to Stiles's toes.

Kissing Derek is something exquisite and entirely novel. He knew the first time Derek kissed him that it wasn't like kissing anyone else. With others kissing had just been an action, and he hadn't much cared for it. But something right happens with Derek. From the first time he felt it, he was also too afraid of rejection to acknowledge it. He just replayed the kiss over and over in his head, reliving it until the tape wore at the edges and he convinced himself he was just imagining the potency of it. But now, living it again, it's impossible to pretend to that Derek doesn't wield some unholy power over him with just the touch of his lips and the sweep of his tongue.

Derek breaks their kiss to nuzzle the side of Stiles's neck, which is... different. It's sexy, but strange at first. Stiles isn't sure what to do with his hands. He just sits there and lets Derek run his nose down his tendon.

"Your _smell,_ " Derek murmurs into his collarbone. At some point, somehow, he'd fallen back on the bed to give Derek a better angle. Derek climbs half up on the bed, and then Stiles no longer processes anything other than Derek's lips on his neck. It makes him quake with excitement.

Stiles coaxes Derek's lips back up to his own so he can taste him again, running his fingers along Derek's impressive beard growth. He's always wanted to feel it. It's a bit coarser than he expected, but in a smooth, shiny sort of way.

"I don't--" Stiles can feel Derek's breath on his lips. It's intoxicating, and he tries to draw him back in for a kiss, but Derek stops him. "Let's just... let's take a second. Take a breath."

"Okay." Stiles leans back, panting on the bed as Derek tucks his face in the crook of Stiles's neck again. Having Derek over him feels surreal, to say the least. He didn't know just how much he wanted this until he got it.

"Do you have any idea--" Derek starts, but then he stops. Stiles waits. He's used to waiting for Derek. And when Derek lifts his head, Stiles's patience is rewarded with the sight of that soft, rose color shining from Derek's irises. Stiles's breath catches because it's different now that he knows what it means. It's entirely different.

"I wish I could do that," Stiles whispers, touching Derek's cheek, just by his eye. "I want you to know how I feel."

"You didn't stop." Derek grins. He looks so devilishly handsome when he does; much more carefree than Stiles is used to from his broody roommate. "You knew what it meant. You didn't stop. That's enough."

"You mean... the laundry."

"Don't stop." Derek breathes deeply, then buries his face in Stiles's chest. Stiles is stunned by the almost childish move at first, but then he takes advantage of Derek's position to thread his fingers through Derek's soft, thick black hair.

"I won't," Stiles laughs, breathless.

"Do you know what it's like to have your scent all over my underwear?" Derek murmurs into Stiles's chest. "Do you have any idea? For _months._ "

"None." Stiles squirms. Derek is big and heavy and pressing into parts of him that are getting more and more excited by the direction of this conversation.

"It's maddening." Derek looks back up at him, his heavily lidded eyes pulsing with light now. "It almost drove me crazy. But I still couldn't ask you to stop."

"What--" Stiles swallows. The weight of another body over him is doing uncalled for things to him. "How does this work? Are we going to have sex?"

Derek just looks at him, his eyes flaring with _feh_.

"Do you want to?"

"Of course I want to. You're talking about... you know. Underwear scent mixing." Stiles waggles his eyebrows. Derek laughs, sudden.

"I've been wanting to-- can I?" Derek asks, a helpless, breathy question that Stiles doesn't understand. But he still finds himself nodding his head emphatically.

Derek kisses him as he runs his hand down Stiles's waist, then slips it all at once inside his underwear. Stiles gasps, his entire world narrowing to the feel of Derek taking hold of him and stroking him, once, firmly. 

Stiles squeezes his eyes closed and throws his head back when he does it again.

He can hear Derek telling him something, fervently, but his brain doesn't process it. It's something nice, something about him. Something Derek likes about him, possibly. But Derek has a rhythm now, and it's a bit slower than he'd like but it's enough to send Stiles into a state of white noise and rapidly building pleasure.

"Oh god," Stiles warns him. "This is too much."

"It's okay," Derek tells him, and his lips soothe Stiles's. "You can. Come on."

"No, I can't--" Stiles pants. "It's too-- way too fast--"

"Stiles." Derek kisses him, and Stiles loses it.

It's humiliating, is what it is. But it's also the hottest thing Stiles has ever experienced in his short life. He can feel his entire face going red as he lies there panting while Derek's hand slows on his softening dick.

Derek is smiling, but it's not teasing or mocking in any way. It just looks fond.

"Mmm."

Stiles can't take it. He rolls to bury his face in Derek's shoulder. Derek's still fully clothed, and Stiles is too, sort of. Derek unzipped his pants at one point so he could stroke him properly, but otherwise no articles of clothing were removed. Despite that fact, Stiles is pretty sure he just lost his virginity.

"What's wrong?" Derek's breath is warm on Stiles's ear. "Why are you suddenly shy?"

"Because that was... new records of fast. Like, Usain Bolt kind of fast."

"So?"

"So." Derek's trying to gently pry Stiles's head off his shoulder, but Stiles is not looking Derek in the eyes right now. "You're not supposed to-- I didn't even _touch_ you. It was just--"

"It was good." Derek's biting the shell of his ear now. "Stiles. Look at me."

Stiles, reluctantly, slowly, does. Derek's eyes are still that pretty, suffused garnet. It's deeply soothing.

"Do I look disappointed?"

"...No."

"I liked watching you come," Derek tells him in a hushed voice. "I want to see it again."

"Oh god." Stiles lets his head fall back, his body suddenly boneless at the thought. He remembers their tiny dorm room, the tiny bed they're only fitting in because Derek's still half on top of him. "Oh god. How do we do this?"

"Will you please..." Derek tilts him to kiss him again. "Stop thinking so much? For just a few minutes. Just be here with me."

"I'm here." Stiles closes his eyes to try to stabilize his wobbly world, grinning at Derek's earnest request. "I'm not thinking about anything but you. And us."

"You're worrying about us living together," Derek surmises accurately. "You're already freaking out about it. We've barely even... started."

"Aren't you?" Stiles asks him. "What about getting dressed? What about sleeping? What about... do we have to tell our friends? Erica is going to tease me until I die."

"Probably." Derek looks far too cool with that. "Nothing has to change, if you want."

"That's a load of bullshit." Stiles sits up a little, but not enough to throw Derek off of him. He likes the heavy weight, the comforting feel of Derek's firm body against his. "It has to change. I can't go back to... _lusting_ after you endlessly."

Derek looks... ridiculously pleased at that.

"Is _that_ what you were doing."

"Oh, shut up." Stiles mumbles, momentarily distracted by the wet mess on his stomach. Derek had -- very thoughtfully -- pulled his shirt up so when he came it just pooled on his stomach. It's a little gross now. Derek seems to notice him eyeing it, so he leans up and pulls some tissues from Stiles's lone bookshelf to clean him up. Stiles watches him carefully clean out his bellybutton with an odd feeling of intimacy. "It has to change, Derek. I just don't know how... how we change in little bits and not all at once and wreck it. I really don't want to wreck it."

"Alright." Derek sighs softly. "You clearly need to talk this out, so let's just decide here and now what we want to do. Or not do." 

"I want to sleep together," Stiles dares to voice something he's thought about countless times in the past few months, usually while falling asleep only a few feet away from the object of his affection. "But it's not going to be comfortable in this tiny bed. And yours is the same -- you barely fit in your bed alone. It's going to drive me crazy, though, if we have to keep sleeping in separate beds."

"I want that too," Derek tells him, his eyes pulsing with light. He surveys their sleeping arrangements for a moment. Then he gets up off of Stiles. Stiles immediately protests until he realizes what Derek's doing.

"Oh." Stiles watches Derek tug his own mattress down onto the floor in a cloud of sheets and pillows. "You are _genius_."

Stiles scrambles off his bed to copy Derek's action, scooting the beds together on the floor until the edges make a seam.

"It'll work for now. We just need to keep the floor well vacuumed." Derek throws himself down on the makkoieshift Queen-size bed and beckons to Stiles. Stiles follows with a laugh, happiness bubbling in his chest as Derek pulls him tight into his arms. "Alright, problem number one solved. What's next in your very busy and noisy mind?" 

"Um. How do I keep my hands off of you?" Stiles wonders, an unexpected wave of shyness rising up only after he's said it. Derek looks pleased again. "It's just. You're very. Well. You've seen you, right? It's going to be very difficult to live in close quarters with you, knowing I'm allowed to touch... things. And just, you know, letting you study when you need to study. Leaving you alone sometimes, the way you like to be left alone."

"That's not the worst problem we could have." Derek's laugh tickles Stiles's nose.

"I don't want to be annoying and clingy."

"Is it still annoying if I like it?"

"I'm serious." Stiles sighs. "I really don't want to step over some invisible boundary again. Like I did with the laundry thing."

"Stiles, touching with weres is important. Scent mixing is... vital for us. We try to smell like our mates at all times. Weres who're together, they touch a lot." Derek kisses him again, as if to illustrate his point. Stiles is totally down for that kind of point illustration. His brain goes offline every time Derek does it, though, and he loses his train of thought. "If it's too much, you know I'll tell you."

"Yeah. It's just." Stiles squints at him. "It might hurt more now. When you scowl. Or snap. Or turn me down, in general."

"Okay." Derek seems to bite back a smile. "But I think I'll be in a permanently better mood with you... _touching_ me all the time. It was difficult living with you and agonizing over whether you wanted me too all this time."

"You just made that dirty," Stiles says, a little breathlessly. "Do you want us-- I mean, is that because we're going to be having sex all the time? Is that what you want?"

"Not all the time." Derek kisses him again. "Definitely some of the time. If you want."

"Yeah." Stiles feels dizzy, so he kisses Derek this time to steady himself. "Yeah, I want. Maybe all the time."

"Some of the time."

"Some of the time," Stiles agrees.

"We both need to keep our grades up," Derek tells him softly. "If my mother learns the reason my GPA dropped this semester is because we couldn't keep our hands off each other, I will literally never hear the end of it."

"Your mom totally hooked us up, dude." Stiles chuckles to himself. Then he tells Derek about his phone call with Thessaly. Derek looks mortified when he's done, but it turns out kisses solve Derek's embarrassment too. Kissing is their magical solution to all their problems, big or small. Stiles is happy the power of their kisses works both ways -- the dazed look on Derek's face when he pulls away is excellent for his self-esteem. 

"I have something I want too," Derek tells him, adjusting so he can lay Stiles's head on his chest. It's a nice chest, the best. Stiles could stay there for a long while. But then Derek grabs the book Stiles had been reading earlier, _The Prince_ , from the floor next to them and waves it in his face. "No more of this Machiavellian scheming." 

"I'm sure I don't --" 

"No more asking my betas about ways to get under my skin. No more trying to make me jealous with your exes." Derek hugs him with one arm. "It works, but I hate it. It confuses me. And you got in over your head. You didn't know what you were really doing to me." 

"You know scheming is kind of my thing, though. Like. A character trait. Or flaw, I guess." 

"Can you just scheme by asking me directly?"

"That's... not a scheme."

"Stiles."

"Roger." Stiles grins, taking the book from Derek's hands. "You confused me, too. You sent me all these mixed signals. You kissed me, and then didn't even invite me to your holiday party. What the hell?"

"Because."

"Because?"

Derek makes a sound, and Stiles doesn't know what sound it is -- a grunt, maybe, with a hint of a whine.

"Because I wanted you, but I wasn't supposed to. And I didn't want to force you, but I couldn't... _stop_ myself."

"What part of me kissing you back made you think you were forcing me?"

"Is this the time for this argument?" Derek wonders aloud. "I thought we were postponing this."

Stiles grins, thinking about it before he answers.

"Yeah, let's keep postponing. I like basking. Let's bask for a little while longer."

But the basking plan is routinely interrupted with bickering over who should have confessed to who, when. Finally, Stiles gets frustrated enough that he admits, "I was going to do it. At Christmas."

"When you came to stay at my house?" Derek blinks at him in surprise.

"After. I thought you might... I mean, you kissed me. And then you sent me home. And then you didn't talk to me. But I was still, you know, riding that high. Until I saw you again, and you acted like nothing was different between us. But I was planning on... I mean, that was going to be your gift."

"My... gift?"

"You gave me that amazing book." Stiles feels ashamed just to think about it. "I was going to ask you out. I was going to take you on a date, as my Christmas gift to you. But I lost my nerve because you were so... normal again."

"Oh."

"Nobody noticed that I didn't get you anything. And then I felt terrible about it, because I know you got me that book. That was your idea."

"Stiles." Derek worries his bottom lip between his teeth. "You should have."

"OH my _god_." Stiles nearly rips his hair out. "You were all... _yourself_ again! You poured a giant bucket of metaphorical ice water over my head!"

"What kind of date were you going to take me on?"

"Why don't I take you on it instead of telling you about it?" Stiles offers.

Derek's smile grows.

"Yeah. Good."

"I'll plan Valentine's. I'm probably better at this whole Valentine's day thing than you. Pizza day with Boyd?" Stiles frowns. " _Every_ Valentine's?"

"Don't you feel special, though, that I want to do something different with you this year?"

"A little, yeah."

"What's expected from me then?" Derek quirks an eyebrow. "What do you want from your boyfriend this year?"

Stiles gets chills. Boyfriend. They're boyfriends. Shit.

"Can I-- can I ask for dirty things?"

"Of course."

"Um." Stiles draws a blank. Now that Derek's given him the green light, he doesn't know what to ask for. "I just want you to show up."

"That's a low bar."

"I'm going to guess you don't like planning things."

"I don't. But I could get you a gift?" Derek tries. "Gifts?"

"God." Stiles scrubs his face with embarrassment. "Don't ask me. I don't know." Then Stiles looks at the signed Asimov next to his bed. "I guess you are pretty good at gifts." 

"You loved that," Derek rolls over him. "You were so happy."

"Yeah, that was good."

"And yet you still think I went back to 'normal', hm?"

It's a good point. But it's a point that leaves Stiles's head quickly as Derek distracts him with other more important things. Their lips are starting to get chapped, but neither one of them is complaining. Stiles will take some chafing over self-control any day.

They fall asleep holding hands. Stiles dreams nothing but pleasant things, and when he wakes up it's to the sight of Derek's broad shoulders much closer than the usual 6-foot plus distance between their dorm beds. Stiles spoons up behind Derek and enjoys the feel of Derek pressing back into him.

It's short-lived because of Derek's alarm clock, which reminds both of them that they didn't do shit the night before. Well, they did things, but not school-mandated things. Much more pleasant things were done.

It leads to a hasty morning of finishing homework and then quickly getting dressed. Stiles is too harried to even be embarrassed, and Derek is too distracted finishing his problem set to notice Stiles is changing, anyway.

"Wait," Derek finally notices when Stiles is about to run out the door to his first class. He leaves his homework and meets Stiles by the door. Stiles finds himself surprised to receive yet another kiss. Derek's hand lingers on his neck, his thumb rubbing Stiles's collarbone for a long moment. 

"See you at lunch." Stiles grins.

They didn't discuss in depth what they wanted to do with the pack. So Stiles shows up at lunch with nerves in his stomach, unsure about how this will go down. Erica didn't talk to him for a week after he turned her down. Now Stiles wonders if his obvious feelings for Derek were one reason why.

There's a seat open next to Derek; Boyd is sitting exactly one seat away. Stiles realizes, with a jolt, that the betas have been arranging themselves like this for a while now. And then it's suddenly easy.

"So that's the secret." Stiles sits down next to Derek, a spot that's apparently been reserved for him for a while. "That's what all the fuss is about." 

"Hello," Derek greets him, his normally stormy expression shifting to pleasant. Stiles loves that he can bring about that change in him. Derek arches one brow, clearly referencing their own secret, before he says very deliberately, "...What secret?"

"Your betas have been nudging us together for weeks now," Stiles tells the table, his eyes on Derek. "Giving us time alone at the end of lunch, was that your idea or theirs?"

Stiles secretly enjoys when the betas react as one. Especially when they each display different shades of the same reaction -- surprise (Erica), concern (Boyd), nervousness (Isaac).

"Theirs," Derek answers calmly. "We get enough time to ourselves at home."

"Hm." Stiles digs in to his meal. "A little obvious, guys. Got to work on your subtlety."

Boyd smiles and goes back to his lunch, but he's the only one to unfreeze.

"Am I dreaming?" Erica asks Isaac slowly. "Or did these two pull their heads out of their asses?"

"Boyd, I'm going to be busy on Valentine's day," Derek announces quietly. Stiles can't help but smile. "Sorry to abandon our yearly tradition."

"I think Isaac may be free," Boyd answers smoothly. "So the night's still on. Erica, you're invited."

"Blegh, that sadfest? I'd rather not." Erica retches quietly. Then she grins too. "What are you lovebirds going to do instead?"

"Secret," Stiles tells them. "Top secret. Only I'm allowed to know."

"That's kind of romantic." Erica looks at him fondly. "I bet you're good at Valentine's day."

"Everyone can be good at Valentine's day if they just know what their partner likes," Stiles tells them, sharing more of his truly infinite wisdom, based on almost no dating experience. "For example, I will not be hiring a quartet for Derek because I know he doesn't like people. Or crowds. Or PDA. Or wooden instruments."

"Thank you," Derek mutters.

"So you're saying it should be tailored," Erica surmises, her dark red lips twisted up in a mischievous smile. "That's kind of... duh."

"Fewer people realize this than you might think. People go for chocolate and roses because they're classics, but you have to know your audience for romance to work."

"Alright, ace." Isaac props himself on the table with one arm. "You're the brainiac. How do I magic myself up a date, like you did with our unapproachable alpha?"

"I'm afraid that's another case-by-case basis, friend. No one right answer."

"You could try just asking someone," Derek answers for him, side-eyeing Stiles. "No scheming needed."

"So says you." Stiles just shakes his head. "Scheming lays the groundwork, in my opinion. I think my scheming helped more than it hurt."

"Excuse me, I take credit for the laundry scheme," Erica interrupts him immediately. "I need the credit. You have no idea how much grief Derek gave me over that when you first started doing it."

"Jury's still out, alright?" Stiles concedes. "We've been discussing all night about this."

"I'm sure," Isaac drawls, waggling his eyebrows, " _discussions_ were happening all night."

Derek's eyes flash with a warning, but Isaac just laughs. Stiles laughs too. He has a feeling they're in for a lot of that in the near future -- and possibly the far future, too -- so he's choosing to take it rather than fight it.

Derek only uses _feh_ to keep his betas in line one other time during lunch. All the betas go still with anticipation when Derek gets up from the lunch table and Stiles gets up to follow him. 

"...What?" Stiles asks as he feels their eyes on him. 

"Did you not tell him about _sken_?" Erica asks Derek. 

Stiles sighs and hangs his head. 

"What. Is. _Sken_?" he asks the floor tiredly. 

A warm hand on his neck brings his gaze up from the floor. Derek's smiling a little, and his thumb sweeps over Stiles's collarbone like it had this morning when they said goodbye. 

"I'm marking you," Derek says quietly. "So no other weres will think you're up for grabs." 

"Seems a bit... over the top." Stiles bites his lower lip to keep from smiling. "I'm not exactly a hot commodity." 

"Mmhm," Derek sounds skeptical, which makes Stiles grin openly with delight.

"Well, that's adorable," Isaac mutters to the rest of the betas. Even Erica looks a bit misty-eyed. 

"Alright. That's enough from you all," Stiles says. He steers Derek away from the table so they can unload their trays before walking to their class. He's pretty sure Derek's class is in the opposite direction of his, but whatever. Stiles needs the exercise. 

"I won't need to use _sken_ if I start folding your clothes," Derek tells him, once they're a safe distance from the preying ears of his betas. 

"Are you for real?" Stiles shakes his head, still grinning. "Thought you hated laundry." 

"That was a lie from Erica. She was just trying to embarrass both of us, remember?" Derek reminds him. He threads their hands together so naturally that for a moment Stiles doesn't know what to do. 

"I thought there were some elements of truth..." 

"None." Derek squeezes his hand. "Laundry swap?" 

"I don't know... I kind of like the idea of you _marking_ me all the time."

" _Stiles_." Derek looks embarrassed now. "Not in public." 

"Okay." Stiles looks around. They are surrounded by weres, but none of them seem to be paying any attention to them. "In private, then?" 

"God," Derek mumbles, shaking his head. Stiles laughs. 

Derek is a bit obsessed with him, which turns out to be less nerve wracking and more hot than Stiles would have expected. Derek wasn't kidding about weres liking touch, and he takes every opportunity. At night they read their respective books with Derek curled up behind him (it's not super comfortable, but Stiles is far from caring), Derek walks him to class with his arm around him, and in the mornings more often than not Derek finds reasons to get into Stiles's pants before they get up and get ready for the day. The only time Stiles isn't allowed to bother him is when he's studying for a test, but even then he likes to keep some part of them touching, even if it means just Stiles's foot next to his foot.

Valentine's day hits Stiles before he's prepared for it, even though he did almost nothing but prepare for it all week.

"Just breathe," Scott counsels him as he comes by his dorm room to drop off the tux Stiles wore to his high school prom. Stiles puts it on quickly while Scott takes in the setup in his dorm room. Stiles tucks the bowtie in his underwear drawer and instead goes for a sleek red tie that his dad lent to him, also via Scott.

"What are you and Kira doing?"

"Nothing like this." Scott carefully sits down on Stiles's naked bedframe. "How did you find this many rose petals? Are those candles arranged in the shape of a heart?"

"If you laugh, I will slay you." Stiles nervously adjusts his tie. "I will. I'm part werewolf, you know."

"So I heard." Scott smiles, and there's no humor in it. "This is so you. But are you sure he's going to like this? He's just so... bad-tempered."

"We're not leaving the dorm. He'll love it," Stiles answers with a bit more bravado than he feels. Everything's still so new for them. And he still learns something about Derek every day -- for example, Derek is secretly afraid of crows and avoids parts of the quad with large flocks ("it's called a _murder_ of crows, Stiles, and there's a reason for that"). But Stiles loves big gestures, and he has to be true to himself.

"Well, this is pretty self-explanatory." Scott looks at the ceiling instead of the flower-petal strewn bed. "I'm assuming you two have... And you didn't tell me. Again!" 

"I was a little busy!" Stiles gestures wildly around the room. "He just asked me out a week ago!"

"Still."

"We've been around each other pretty much 24/7 since then. I didn't have any alone time to call and chat about losing my virginity."

Scott gives him a look that tells Stiles he's not going to let him brush this away.

"You haven't been telling me things. For a while now."

"... Yeah."

"Is it because of college?" Scott asks hesitantly, and Stiles frowns at the way Scott looks away self-consciously. "Or because of... your mom?"

"No. Of course not." Stiles stops fiddling with his tie in front of the mirror. Derek's class won't be done for another thirty minutes; he has time to have this conversation. So he sits down next to Scott on his empty bedframe, tiptoeing around the careful arrangement of flower petals on their makeshift Queen floor bed to get to him. "It's not about you. I was upset with you for not telling me about my mom, but I'm not... punishing you, or something. I expect you to tell me my own deep, dark secrets in the future -- should you stumble upon them-- but I'm getting over your past transgression. Slowly." Stiles smiles at him reassuringly, but Scott still looks doubtful. "For years, there was this aching loneliness. I thought it was just... puberty, or being a teenager. Something regular. Part of it probably was, but now I think a bigger part of it is the were piece of me that wants a pack. And being in a pack comes with pack secrets."

"Even from me?"

"Yeah, even from you." Stiles bumps his shoulder. "But I'll still tell you _my_ secrets. I swear, I'll tell you all about the sex Derek and I are having, just as soon as I get a moment alone. In fact, I have a few minutes before he shows up if you want to..."

"All right, all right." Scott throws his hands up. "I don't need all the details. Unless you really want to. But. You know, are you guys being safe? What have you been... doing?"

"Like, you want positions?" Stiles asks with a shit-eating grin. "Really, Scotty? I don't remember quizzing you about yours and Kira's sex life when you guys went all the way."

"That was different. Kira wasn't my first. This is... pretty big."

"I guess." Stiles shrugs, then rethinks it. "Yeah. He's important to me. Clearly." Stiles gestures around the room to illustrate his point.

"So?"

"We've done hand jobs. And blow jobs." Stiles finds himself going red when Scott's eyebrows jump up in surprise. "You happy now?"

"Do you have condoms?" Scott asks pointedly.

"Yes, I have condoms."

"Good. Because you are _so_ going to need them tonight. Probably right after I leave." Scott mumbles the last bit with a wrinkle in his nose.

"Great."

"Are you.... you know, are you ready for that?"

"For condoms?" Stiles asks slowly. It's bizarre having this conversation with Scott. He can tell that Scott thinks the same thing from the way he's avoiding Stiles's eyes right back.

"Yeah, for...condoms. Do you know... I mean, not that I'm an expert in this kind of sex, but have you done any Stiles-like research on the subject?"

"Enough," Stiles answers shortly. He's been busy. But, again, not alone -- Derek has been with him 24/7, so most of the research he'd done recently had been hands-on with a willing participant.

"Do you know, you know." Scott coughs. Stiles looks at him, waiting. He's not going to help him. He waded into these waters and he can get himself right out of them, too. "Do you know... who... will be using the condom?" Scott asks carefully.

"Is this something you desperately need to know?" Stiles wonders, amused now. "Who's the pitcher and who's the catcher?"

"You can talk about this stuff with me," Scott insists. Bless him, he looks serious. Stiles laughs and leans back on the bedframe.

"Yeah, thanks Scotty. I will. I just don't have much to talk about yet. I have... no idea. If everything else Derek does is any indication, I'm probably playing catcher tonight. But he might surprise me. I'll just have to figure it out."

"Isn't that kind of important to talk about?" Scott asks, stiltedly. "So you know if you're... compatible?"

"Jesus." Stiles thinks for a moment, nerves creeping back into him. "I don't know. Maybe?"

Scott shrugs. Stiles stares at him.

"Now I'm all nervous."

"I'll go." Scott laughs when Stiles smacks him in the shoulder. "It's just. You should talk about this with him, if you haven't already. You don't have to just... dive right in. Slow the physical down a little and talk about things."

"Thanks. I think you've given enough advice for the night, man. You've got me all nervous."

"You were going to be nervous anyway," Scott argues as Stiles shoos him over to the door and pushes him through it. Scott pounds their fists together as he leaves, grinning again. "Good luck tonight."

Stiles immediately regrets shoving Scott out -- waiting in silence, with nothing but his own thoughts, is much worse. Stiles has little to no patience, and he's terrible at holding a position. He's shaking a cramp out of his arm when Derek opens the door to their dorm room and stops dead.

Stiles gets deja vu immediately -- the look on Derek's face is the same as when he noticed the first batch of folded laundry.

"I wanted to be the one who asked you out," Stiles tells him, holding up a bouquet of roses. "But you beat me. So I'm out-doing you with roses and a nice dinner. Now you have to say it was me who asked you out."

Derek is silent for a long minute, long enough that Stiles starts to doubt how charming he must look right now, down on one knee in a tux in the middle of their makeshift bed, covered in roses and surrounded by candles, holding a bouquet of roses up for his boyfriend.

"No way. I asked you out." Derek's smile is slow and sweet. "You can't just erase history with roses and a... very sexy tux."

"Is it sexy?" Stiles asks seriously, looking down at himself. "I wore it to prom."

"Very." Derek sets his bag down by the door and sits down on the bed with him. "You're sexy in most things, though."

"Thanks." Stiles's nerves and pounding heart slow down a little at the genuine joy in Derek's eyes. He called it right. He should never have doubted his awesome Valentine's prowess.

"You bought us fancy takeout," Derek notes, looking at the carefully arranged, but very tiny, table just barely squeezed between their desks. Stiles had borrowed a lawn table from Boyd and then dressed it up with a tablecloth from Goodwill that was still in remarkably good condition.

"Because you hate people and crowds, yes. So we don't have to eat in a restaurant today."

"You're good at this," Derek compliments him. Stiles beams.

"I am good at this." 

"I'm lucky," Derek tells him, leaning in. Stiles happily accepts the kiss with the praise. "But you're not. I'm not as good at this."

"Well, it's no pizza night with Boyd," Stiles says with mock chagrin as he directs Derek up to the table so they can eat their food.

Derek looks all soft and happy all through dinner. He even asks if he should put on nicer clothes, but Stiles kind of likes being the only one in a suit so he tells him no. He thinks, for the millionth time, that Derek is much more handsome when he's happy.

Derek picks the candles off the bed afterward, admonishing Stiles for the fire hazard, and blows out all but a few (safely set on the windowsill and away from flammable things, like bedsheets). They fold up the table and the tablecloth, storing them with some difficulty in Derek's closet. Then Derek kisses Stiles and undoes his tie with sure fingers as he sinks with him down onto the bed.

"Scott thinks we should talk first."

Derek's fingers pause in unbuttoning Stiles's shirt, then trail down to take Stiles's hands in his.

"Scott thinks we should talk, or you do?"

"Scott suggested it and I agreed, I guess." 

"What is it?" Derek asks the question patiently enough, but Stiles is caught by the open hunger in his eyes. It's almost enough to make Stiles shut himself up. Almost.

"Are you a catcher or a pitcher?"

Derek reacts to that by smiling slowly. His smile has a sharp edge that Stiles didn't expect.

"I'm so glad you have a straight best friend who's an expert in gay sex." 

"It's a valid question, right?" Stiles defends both Scott and himself for thinking it's a good question to ask. "I don't have much experience with this. Or any at all."

"Remind me to send Scott a basket of mini muffins later," Derek growls, his eyes flaring red. Stiles sits back, surprised by Derek's response.

"Do you not want to talk about this?"

"What I don't want is for you to put all this weight on a sex position, then convince yourself that if you don't like bottoming we won't make it." 

"So you're a pitcher."

"Stiles, I've been thinking about bending you over my desk from almost the minute you walked into this dorm room." Derek looks so fierce as he says this that Stiles sits back again, torn between confusion and a wave of dizzying desire. "But if you don't like that, it's okay. We've been having good sex so far, and I've never once brought this up. It's just a position. We don't have to do it if you don't like it."

"I think you're actually trying to be incredibly sweet, but you don't look like it at all." Derek is glowering at him, but the content of his words is deeply reassuring. Stiles starts to laugh at the ridiculous contradiction that is Derek, breaking the tension that had tightened between them so quickly. "All right. I get it. You don't want me to think in terms of absolutes."

"No, it's reductive."

"Does that mean I get to pitch sometimes?" Stiles asks brightly.

"Of course. There's no embargo on my ass," Derek chuckles, rubbing Stiles's hands in his own. "It's not my favorite thing to do, but I don't hate it either. "

"Can't believe Scott almost ruined our Valentine's day with his well-intentioned meddling. Also, can you say 'no embargo on my ass' again? I need to record it for posterity."

"You need to stop listening to other people," Derek mumbles against Stiles's chest as Stiles climbs onto his lap and settles there. Derek strokes his back and nuzzles his collarbone. "Just listen to me, when it comes to me."

"I'm learning that." Stiles kisses the top of his head. "Shall we make love amongst the flower petals?" 

Derek groans, then chuckles. He resumes his work on Stiles's shirt buttons that Stiles so rudely interrupted before.

"He was right a little bit. I'm glad we talked about it."

"Can we stop talking about it now and just do what you suggested?"

Stiles is onboard with that. And now that his curiosity is piqued, of course he has to try it.

It takes a while, and at first it's just painful. But after Derek gets two fingers in him he finds his prostate and Stiles starts to get what other people like about anal.

"That's -- oh my god. Okay. I might be a catcher," Stiles pants as Derek seems to figure out the exact location of his prostate, jabbing it without fail. He can feel his orgasm already building, the newness of the sensation pushing him toward it even faster than usual.

Derek makes a deep sound in answer and speeds his unerring thrusts. He's watching Stiles so closely, seeming to read the tiniest ticks in his expression and adjusting accordingly. Stiles has never seen him so openly hungry, his eyes a dark, pulsing red. For a delirious moment Stiles thinks that even if he didn't like this, he would do it for the rest of his life just so Derek would look at him like that.

But he does like it, and it's not long before he's shaking to an orgasm that leaves him breathless and disoriented. He doesn't even realize Derek's still fingering him until Derek leans over to stroke himself onto Stiles's hip and his fingers rub Stiles's prostate again, deliberate. It's way too much, and Stiles writhes at the overstimulation. Derek seems to come from that alone, spilling onto Stiles's skin mere seconds later. 

"Can't believe you did that," Stiles complains as Derek spoons up next to him, breathing just as hard as Stiles.

"That was hot," Derek mumbles against his throat.

"Yeah. Well." Stiles can feel himself grow warm with pleasure. "You're hot. And I'm totally down for trying that again, but with your dick."

Derek presses their bodies together. It's both sweaty and perfect. Stiles's mind wanders, and he can't help but smiling to himself.

"Did you really want to bend me over your desk the first time you saw me? But you were such a dick to me. I thought you hated me."

"Yeah. We were roommates. I wasn't about to act on it."

"But couldn't you have been nice to me, at least?"

Derek sighs heavily, draping his arm over Stiles's chest.

"I could have. But in my experience, it's harder to hide your attraction to someone when you actually talk to them."

Stiles beams up at the ceiling.

"This is the best Valentine's day ever."

"Mine too." Derek kisses his neck again.

"Oh!" Stiles sits up suddenly. "What's my present?"

Derek sits up too. It's dark outside now, and the candles on the windowsill cast a flickering, warm glow over his stupidly gorgeous face. Stiles wishes he were a painter so he could capture what Derek looks like, naked in the low light of the room. Instead, Stiles just looks at him for a long time, thinking to himself that he doesn't need anything else.

But still, Derek got him a present, so...

"What is it?" Stiles asks again, whispering. Derek's looking at him too, his mouth curled in a fond smile. His eyes are glowing dimly with _rhees._

"It's not really a... present. Or it if it is, it's a selfish one."

"Derek." Stiles prods gently. "Tell me."

Derek sighs, running a hand through his dark hair. He has a rose petal stuck to his shoulder. Stiles brushes it off.

"I want you in my pack, Stiles. We've talked about it before." Stiles's breath catches. It feels like an invisible tug-of-war between them has been happening over this, and he's never been sure who's supposed to tug the hardest. "But being in a pack is supposed to be lifelong, or near to it. I don't just want you in my pack because you're my boyfriend. Even if we... even if we aren't always like this, I still want you in my pack."

"I--" Stiles fumbles his words. He looks down, blinking away tears that spring to his eyes for reasons he doesn't totally understand. Derek seems to understand, though, because he tilts his face back up with a hand on his chin.

"Do you understand? That you're enough? That I like who you are? That everyone else in my pack likes who you are? That we're ready to call you one of us?" 

"Y-yes." Stiles answers shakily.

"Good." Derek takes his hand away. He licks his lips slowly, lost in thought before he speaks again. "Don't answer me tonight. I just wanted you to know -- the invitation is there. For the rest of your life, the invitation stands."

Somehow, words still refuse to come to him. He knows if he tries to talk, it'll come out choked. So he just leans his head against Derek's shoulder and lets Derek thread fingers through his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> I assume most of you are here because you follow my profile on AO3, given I don't have any other presence in fandom anymore, soooo I'll just say -- timestamps for Boys Like You are still in the pipeline. And I'm still collecting your votes for which scenes you'd like to see. I just got a bit distracted with daydreaming this fluffy college AU :P.


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